Luna Secrets

You try, you try, you try ....

2012-01-22T20:37:00.000-06:00

This post comes with a sound track. A bad recording, but the only one I could find of one of my favorite songs, and my theme song for this year. Play Bain Mattox's You Try, and read, if you will.

Well, better late than never as New Year's posts go. This one languished as a draft for three weeks.
I was inspired by retrospective posts I've enjoyed on other blogs and thought I'd try a photo retrospective, but failed miserably. It's no small task to find 12 highlights from 11,052 photos from last year. I got a little freaked out when I added them up. So I gave up on that notion. But here I am, reflecting anyway. It's good to look back and take stock, to make plans for the coming year.

When I reflect back on 2011, I have issues with relativity and perspective, so I'm glad I have my photo archives to remind me of the muchness of the past year. 2011 runs into a puddle that started around 2000, no thanks to chronic neck and joint pain and menopausal exhaustion, with a sprinkle of periodic depression. I've done my best to hang on and be the parent, the wife and the daughter I needed to be, but if I had a do-over, I'd try to smile and laugh and relax more. It's been a year of drama and I've tried to keep a calm center on the home front, tried not to wallow in pity or midlife existential crisis, to think long term. Again, not been easy. I've often felt like I was slogging through deep mud, that I was doing everything wrong, or worse than I intended, and I've tried very hard to shut down my inner critic and just do my best. What else can a person do?

You live your life

You try, you try, you try

To come to life

You try, you try, you try

To walk the earth

You try, you try, you try

You die from birth

You try, you try, you try

So here's to 2012, a fresh start. I have high hopes. First, 12 is my favorite number, has been since I was nine, when I put my quarter on number 12 at the carnival and won my giant pink cat. I'm hoping that 2012 will be kind to me. It's the year of the dragon, a symbol of power, and I like that. Also, my doctor told me five years ago that most menopause symptoms are gone by the 9th year. 2012 will be my 9th year of debilitating hot flashes, night sweats, bad dreams, disturbed sleep and insomnia, and I'm hoping for a reprieve, because I'm worn out. And since the doomsdayers are predicting yet another apocalypse in 2012, I'm hoping for a good year just to make a point. Lastly, I'm finally wise enough to begin to understand that the only thing I can control or change is me, and I've been reading some things about aging gracefully and spiritually, and using some Zen and Buddhist mojo to reorient my thought processes, and that alone has given me a sense of calm and hope going into this year like no other.

Philosophically, I'll be working on being in the now, the vertical timeline, and not obsessing on the horizontal timeline. I'll be visualizing my monkey brain riding a purposeful elephant, maybe in a wonderful parade of tigers and dragons. When things get scary or stressful or too hard, I'm going to visualize my calm lake with a storm passing by, and I'm going to think the wind and the clouds away and make the calm happen until the sun comes out again. Or sail away from the storm. Whatever works.

Practically, I'll be working on incremental improvements. I'm going to fight being crabby when the mood strikes me, especially around my kids. I'm going to be as kind as I can for as long as I can. I'm going to start getting rid of the things that don't make our lives better - the clutter, the things that don't work, the things that take up too much space. I'm going to spend as much time outside as I can. I'm going to start planning a better garden this winter, and have my seeds started on time for once. I'm going to eat healthier and continue to shop locally. Maybe even exercise a bit. Maybe. Or maybe just walk the dog more often.

Pie in the sky wise, I'm going to finish those baby scrapbooks and convert all those mini-VHS to DVD's to give to my almost grown children so they can know who they are and who they were and where they came from. I know how important it is to know those things, even though they might not care for a few more decades. They will someday, and I'll hopefully have it done by then.

Time sure does fly.

This year, every time I breathe in, I'm going to be grateful and breathe out real slow, and be glad to inhale the next time. I'll be glad to see and share the world through the eyes and hearts of my blogger friends, and I resolve to keep reading here in the magical internet, and writing when I have something to say.

I wish for a kind year for all of us, as we try, we try, we try.

Thoughts from this week

2012-01-13T20:50:00.000-06:00

Oh, the ring around the moon last weekend. I tried every trick on the camera and these were the best I could get. Pale comparison, but I had to try.

I caught these berries against the rising sun on one of our strange 50 degree January days.

We spent the weekend in the Wisconsin Dells, inside a cold, drafty inflatable stadium filled with volleyball courts. It was all good, especially the fireplace in our hotel room.

The ride home gave us a glorious sunset. I soaked it in.

Our week ended with a winter storm and blowing snow. It made for a dreary and slow commute to work for Thursday and Friday.

Tonight is cold and clear, with small sparkly snowflakes drifting about. I'm cozy inside, relieved to be home, not driving to anywhere, especially work.

I haven't had much to say about work. It's hard reentering the workforce after a 14 year hiatus. Harder still to shift career paths - not that this qualifies as a path - more like a missed turn - and hardest of all to adjust to an inflexible schedule that doesn't allow me time with my family when it suits me.

Add in the long commute, the politics, the bureaucratic inefficiencies, the regional disparities between campuses, the depressing socio-economic demographic we serve and the cranky personalities of some of the staff and I think a lot about how much I really need this paycheck.

So I tell myself to quit my bitching, count my blessings and keep my eye on the college fund account, to spend my spare time doing things that make me happy, even if it's as simple as snapping a picture out the car window when I'm on the go, or making sure to walk in the woods on the sunny days with the big furry happy dog. And on the really crappy days, I think about the tiny, quiet girl who hugged me after she passed her final test for her GED, and countless other moments of relief and celebration and tears as students test into the classes they need, or pass the reading test for financial aid, or take that first step toward something better, and I remind myself that I'm privileged to witness these hard earned moments of accomplishment. They keep me going until the next one, and balance out the bad most days.

I hope to have time for proper visits to your blogs this weekend. I've been too absent.

Ciao for now.

Sunset Scramble

2012-01-07T10:27:00.002-06:00

Twice this week I've pulled off the road on my rush home from work to snap pictures of sunsets that took my breath away and made me want to freeze time and soak it in. The first time, all I had with me was my cell phone and my memory, but last night, I was ready with a camera. I was jumping out of my skin, practically yelling Holy Crap, trying to get to somewhere to catch a better view.
Here's how it went down:

Twice I pulled off the road to get some pictures without traffic or power lines in the way. I wished I was sitting on the top of a hill with clear views, but you get what you get. It was a gift even with strip malls and humanity in the way.

Friday was the warmest January day I can remember, reaching over 50 degrees and filled with sunshine. It was no fun to work inside all day, but the sunset made the ride home one of my best yet.

Have a great weekend.

There and Back Again, A Picture Journey

2011-12-31T12:56:00.000-06:00

The Stockings Were Hung....

2011-12-25T00:22:00.000-06:00

by the chimney with care, but that's not the issue here.

Somebody knows there's a new rawhide bone under the tree and he can't wait.

He's been standing and sitting sentinel all night, barking and whining. It's pitiful.

Only a few more hours to wait.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Happy whatever you celebrate, where ever you are.

Happy New Year too.

Sunday Snapshots

2011-12-18T20:04:00.001-06:00

Scenes from this week:

Cookies for the work cookie exchange:

Saturday sunrise en route to ACT testing:

Sunday's wonderful frost show:

A lovely walk in the woods with the husband and the dog:

First, I squawked at my husband for wrecking my nature shot, then I laughed, then we worked as a team to stomp off this amazing shelf fungus to bring home for my next crazy project. It was a very good morning.

See you next week.

Scenes from this week....

2011-12-11T17:22:00.005-06:00

My work schedule gives me one work week morning off, and for the past two weeks, they have involved taking a large fluffy allergy prone dog to the vet for ear checks and shots. Thanks to a recurrent yeast infection in his ear (?) we now feed him the ridiculously expensive all natural stuff, no wheat, no corn, no dairy. There might be a lactose intolerance involved too, but I haven't the heart to find out. How do you not share your cheese with this face? I'll worry about lactose intolerance some other time. I'm weak.

After the vet, to make up for all the indignities, we went to the woods to for a walkabout. We saw lots.

The best things we saw wouldn't be photographed. A pair of great horned owls, roosting in separate trees, each silently swooped away from us as we walked through their patch of old forest. This is the second time I have seen them - the first time, I wasn't ready with the camera, and this time I was, but it still didn't matter. You can't see them until they fly, and they are swift and eerily silent, and blend in so well with the trees that my photos are of no use.

Trust me, they were there.

I'm strangely taking snaps out the car window again - I find the scenery compelling. This is the first half of my ride to work. I know all the back roads to avoid stop lights, strip malls and traffic.

I drive past some amazing farms, and on one new shortcut, I found a delightful, whimsical assortment of sculptures in the pasture. It is as hard to get a decent shot of my favorite - a crow pulling a worm from the ground - as it is to catch a great horned owl with my camera. Something is always moving too quickly.

My commute ends at the center of the second largest city in Illinois. The economic downturn has hit it very hard. Entire blocks are vacant, boarded up, waiting for something, anything to happen. I guess that's what we are, the something that is happening. A few jobs to go with the masses we are educating would go a long way toward helping, in my little opinion.

This is the view from the top of the parking garage, looking out over the river to the east. There is a strange dichotomy to our new construction and the old, sad buildings and vacant stores and halfway houses that surround us. Of course there is a casino. In Illinois, where there is water, there is always a casino.

The other view, to the west. This lovely building with the ornamental onion top is vacant and sad. I've learned that it is the Hobbs building, built in 1892, and it used to be a furniture and a casket store.

It's very strange going to work as the sun is setting, while most of the world is heading home. I amuse myself with the random scenery. The first time I saw this Christmas display, I almost choked on my coffee. It's bizarre, and again, I took a really crappy picture. If I can ever get a good one, I'll repost it, but they usually have their cars blocking it. Do you see the polar bear leering over tiny baby Jesus? What's missing from the photo is the snowman and Santa that bracket the creche. I imagine the owners are pretty happy with their decor, and don't see the unintentional humor in the composition and arrangement. I do. It makes my drive, 5 days a week, along with the giant crow, the lovely farms and the midwestern sky.

Lastly, we had our first snowfall of the year, followed by our first ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????

cold snap of 6 degrees with a brisk wind to chill us to the bone. Furry dogs don't seem to mind, but the humans did a bit of complaining. The lovely snow took a little of the winter bite away.

Have a nice week, and I'll check in next weekend with the interesting things I find between now and then.

Worry Stones

2011-12-03T22:15:00.000-06:00

Vicki Lane's post about things she keeps in jars got me thinking about the things I keep in jars and bowls and vessels in my home.

I'm partial to natural objects, especially rocks and shells, sea glass and fossils, bugs and leaves. It's a family tradition, to notice treasure laying about and collect for safekeeping. It's also a family eccentricity to use them as decor.

I admit to going a bit overboard on the rocks, but I've had a lifetime to amass this collection - my dad got me hooked when I was a little girl. This is my collection of Lake Superior stones.
(Pay no attention to the large dead moth on top of the rocks.)

They look a lot better wet, so the colors pop:

When I had kids, one of the really cool things we did was revisit my childhood with my parents, gemming in the hills of North Carolina, where treasure is just waiting to be found. We found lots: ruby, garnet, emerald, aquamarine, topaz, tourmaline, amethyst, and my favorite rock name of all time, adventurine.

I keep this hefty collection on the piano, and I'm surprised the glass hasn't given way under the weight.

I keep this big honking bowl full by the tv. I really don't know what to do with them any more. Dad used to polish rocks for fun, but I don't have the patience for a hobby of that long a time frame. It takes a really, really long time to polish rocks. I like having a pile or two around in their natural jagged form, because I like the symbolism and the symmetry of having them set next to the polished ones. I like to know that with enough time and abrasion and worry, you can turn something painful into something smooth and comforting.

This tiny jar is my favorite of Dad's polished stones. The blue beach glass is almost the shape of a heart. He found the little soft, smooth white ones in a stream bed in Delaware, and they were among his favorite creations, because they were so plain an unassuming until they were polished into almost pearls. The blue and white one is the one I carry in my pocket for my worry stone when my edges are feeling jagged and rough. I like it's stunning blue, because he had some seriously blue eyes that just sparkled, and it reminds me most of him.

This week has been a bit jagged and moody for me, and I've been wallowing in my emotions more than I care to. So it must be time to put a shiny rock in my pocket and carry on.

Thanks to Vicki, Mary, Angella, Rubye, Jan, Robin, SJ and all my blog friends who help me polish my edges smooth.

Photo Therapy

2011-11-26T20:30:00.000-06:00

What to do on a rainy Saturday after Thanksgiving? This:

I got the last of my pressed leaves from the giant dictionary and played with my bucket of leaves for hours, until the camera battery died.

My daughter helped me with the lighting and composition and editing. I learned to play with the histograms and edit the pictures to make them pop. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do, but I just crop and crank up the black pixels.

I spent hours editing the leaf photo file from November. After deleting all the ones I could part with, this month's file has 1251 photos. That's maybe a few hundred too many. October's has 2055 pictures, so November was an improvement, photo-OCD-wise.

I know I should clean up the files, but who do I delete? All these pretty textures and colors and patterns -

they remind me of stained glass windows in church, and sunny days, and earthy smells. They make me happy, even if they are filling up my hard drive.

I can't think of a better waste of time or space on a rainy Saturday.

Turkey Day My Way

2011-11-24T15:56:00.003-06:00

So, me, miss bah humbug, no travel, no family, no Holiday Spirit, went a little overboard this Thanksgiving. It started with a recipe for chocolate pudding layered dessert that reminded me of french silk pie. Nobody here eats pie, so it was worth a shot. We're the strangest bunch of picky eaters known to man, so I was going to make a simple meal.

I stopped by the grocery store after my late shift Tuesday for a handful of items and filled the cart, reminiscing about my childhood favorites. It was all downhill from there.

My husband grilled a turkey breast on the rotisserie, I roasted some wings and carmelized onions, garlic, carrot and celery for my gravy stock. We played music and cooked all day, and I didn't mind a bit.

Here's how the menu ended up:

Roast turkey breast and gravy
smashed yukon gold potatoes
cornbread stuffing
slippery dumplings
long grain and wild rice
cooked carrots
steamed broccoli
grean beans
rolls
roasted brussel sprouts *
cooked kale and onions *
yellow squash casserole *
whipped acorn squash and sweet potatoes *

coolwhip cream cheese pudding pecan pie for dessert, also known as better than sex, but I didn't call it that because I wanted the kids to try it. At least one of them did. My husband and I loved it, and thank goodness I only made half a batch, because we're stuffed from eating too much everything.

* These are the items that I alone ate. I tried to get everyone to at least taste them and then decide, but all three of them said no thanks. That's ok. I'll eat this stuff all week. I can't decide which was my favorite.

I took no pictures, skipped the formal dining room, the fancy plates, the shiny gold and silver flatware, the candles, the linen napkins, and we served everything right off the stove from pans and casserole dishes. It just seemed silly to put it all into serving dishes for just us, although I've always done that until this year. And guess what? Nobody cared, in fact, it was easy keeping it casual. Maybe I shouldn't have used the Halloween paper napkins, but oh well, and again, nobody noticed.

Our families may be scattered and our traditions a little threadbare, but at least we had a nice meal together, just the four of us, with something for everyone, and a lot for just me! I didn't stress out one tiny bit this year and that is a first, because pulling a big meal together with precision timing is not my talent. We made it happen just fine, though, and it was all good. We were appropriately thankful, and grateful, which is the point, I think. That and eating more than usual because you can, and it's all just too good.

I hope your Thanksgiving was all you needed it to be, nobody stressed out and everything was yummy. What's the best thing you ate or did today?

And So It Goes...

2011-11-18T19:14:00.003-06:00

I'm carrying this book around like a baby.

Kurt Vonnegut's eyes are the last thing I look at at night and the first thing I look at in the morning.

What I see in those eyes changes daily.

I'm reading as fast as I can, mostly in stolen moments, which is very frustrating. Life is not cooperating with my need to engross myself in this book right now. In a perfect world, I'd be in a self guided college English course, rereading Mr. Vonnegut's stories and novels in chronological order, analyzing them in the context of this biography, trying to make sense of it all, but my world is very far from perfect. So I read on and on in snippets, ever anxious about the review I need to write in exchange for my advanced copy, feeling at once rushed and unwilling to hurry. I don't want this book to end. I don't want to know what happens next, because I know what happens in the end.

Context is everything, and I was missing a lot of context while reading Vonnegut's books over the last thirty years. I reread both Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions a couple of years ago, and they both made me laugh and cry repeatedly, so sad and yet still hopeful. I knew so little about one of my favorite authors that I am somewhat ashamed. Somehow, in the 1970's I became fixated with war stories, soldier's memoirs, especially Vietnam and WWII, probably because I knew and loved some pretty damaged veterans, and I saw them struggle to live a regular life. I tend to compartmentalize their sadness or brokenness as a logical result of surviving the insanity of war. I suppose I saw Kurt Vonnegut through that tinted lens, and failed to see all the other shades of sadness in his life, both before and after his release as a POW. I'm guilty of thinking in my narrow mind that he wrote these cathartic works and went about his quirky way as an esteemed author. I was very wrong. I'm beginning to get a sense of how difficult a project this must have been for anyone to undertake, and a deep respect for the author who convinced Kurt Vonnegut to let him write it.

Of course, when I am done living in the book altered reality of And So It Goes , I suppose I owe it to myself and Mr. Shields to read his biography of Harper Lee, Mockingbird.

Mr. Shields writes a wonderful blog about writing if you care to give it a look. He's a fine writer, and based on his kind comment on my little corner of the blog world, and his taking the time to email me, a fine person as well. If you're a biography fan, or a Vonnegut fan, his book will make you think, laugh, cry and so on.

Happy reading!

ps!!!

I'm outraged that Blogger deleted the amazing work of art that is The Dishwasher's Tears.

If you love your blog and you don't want to lose it, in your dashboard, Settings Tab, Basic, Blog tools is an Export Blog choice. Blogger will download all the text in your blog to your computer and you will have it on your hard drive. HOWEVER, pictures and embedded items do not follow.

Or, you could open a wordpress account and import from your blogger site with a few permission clicks. Everything is there, easy peasy. I'm working on my transfer now, it's here if you fancy a look. I like the change myself.

Or, if you really want to go all out, the website blog2print will turn your blog into a book and sell it to you for a fee. You should play around just to see what your blog looks like as a book, it's fast and free, unless you want to touch it!

Happy Weekend everyone.

Hope the Dishwasher is back online soon. I need a fix.

On second thought....

2011-11-13T13:15:00.001-06:00

I was going to post more leaf pictures and whine about the change of seasons, the time change and my confusing, confounding new job, but screw that. Instead here's a video to make you laugh with satire and irony, and a video to make you laugh and cry with wonder.

Roy Zimmerman's extraordinary political satire:

Hope it made you laugh too. Roy is performing in Florida this week.

Liberty and Sophie encounter a Murmuration:

I've watched this 6 times now and still get goosebumps, and smile along with them at 1:48.

My kids found it fascinating, and it led us down a rabbit hole of youtube videos on such things. The world is a mysterious and wondrous place, my friends.

Happy Sunday and have a great week.

xo

p.s.

OK, maybe just ONE leaf picture, one of the 904 I've taken in November, one photo showing the shrub that now has ONE leaf left clinging to it. not that I'm complaining. Oh wait, maybe I am. Oh Well.

p.p.s.

I'm reading an Advanced Copy of And So It Goes Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, and it is just so damn sad. I knew he survived the fire bombing of Dresden. I knew he was damaged by war. I did not know he came home on leave prior to his deployment to surprise his family and his mother for Mother's Day, and that his mother committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills that weekend, while he was home. His mom was a mess, and never recovered from the loss of social status during the Depression, and Kurt never felt loved in the first place, but this? Too cruel. I'm less than 60 pages into the 420 page book, and my heart is just breaking for poor Kurt. I'm going to have to reread a lot of his work through new eyes when I am finished with the biography.

That is all for now.

Leaf Abstracts

2011-11-04T08:00:00.002-05:00

I was just going to press a few leaves to play with, but I got carried away. I have leaves pressed everywhere, and playing with them backlit, macro has been way too much fun.These are from a frenzied but fun hour yesterday. I can't wait until I have a chunk of time to really experiment with light and focus.

I'm fascinated by the variations that light can cause. This little leaf....

... becomes yellow green and pinkish....

....but a slight tilt and the green fades and the purple pops.

This one is as lovely as stained glass windows. I'll be playing with this leaf a lot more.

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to paint abstracts, but I gave up. Nothing I could create could come close to pleasing my eye like these leaf photos. Nature already made all the art I need. I'm just learning to catch it so I can look at it whenever I want to.

Happy Friday from the land of the easily amused.

Fall Madness

2011-10-29T14:20:00.003-05:00

So, maybe I took 549 pictures yesterday, just in my little yard, but it's the viburnum's fault, for being so enchanting. I also blame the incredible quality of light in the woods in the morning, and the glowing magic light as the sun was setting too. I was so intent on trying to capture the light, color and patterns that I almost forgot to smell. Oh my. I breathed so deep and long I got dizzy. Crunchy fall leaves, earthy brown smells, colors in every shade - I took pictures morning and evening until my hands were numb. I'm making some DVD's for my mom and a certain leaf loving friend in California so I have a little excuse besides my insanity for all this excess.

These few selections are just from yesterday, just the viburnums, just one variety of the four I have in my yard. Don't even get me started on the Bradford Pear.......

Attention Online Shoppers....

2011-10-27T23:03:00.000-05:00

I'm mostly an online shopper, because shopping out in the world can make me depressed faster than any other modern day activity, except maybe sitting in traffic. I hate wasting hours looking for things that aren't in the store, I hate waiting in lines and my super tall family can't wear much off the racks unless highwaters come back in style. So I let my fingers do the shopping, and I stay happy at home in my comfy clothes.

A friend told me about Ebates - a shopping portal that gives you rebates, and I was hooked. Creating an account was easy - just an email and address, so they can mail me checks. I was shopping at these stores anyway, so I'm happy to click through another link first to get cash back. Sometimes I forget and have my cart filled, but it's almost always magically still there when I open the new window through ebates.

I've been using ebates for most all my online shopping needs and in less than 2 years I've earned $165 in rebates. Most stores offer 3% back, but some go up to 10% which thrills me to no end, because I grew up in a tax free state, and giving Illinois 7% galls me, so the rebates take some of that sting away.

Lots of companies offer free shipping or low flat rate shipping. I ordered from 3 stores tonight because the babies keep growing and I paid $4 in shipping costs. I'm teaching my kids to never, ever pay retail, and to always shop around for the best deal. There's no need to bang my head against the wall at American Eagle or the mall, with sticker shock or lack of stock. Plus, I really like shopping at my old favorites, like Bealls in Florida or Boscov's in Maryland from afar, and sometimes the clearance deals are crazy good.

If you want to check it out, Ebates has over 1200 participating stores, and if I read it right, you get a $5 credit for signing up through that link. Anyway, with the crass commercialism season looming, I thought I'd pay the Ebate hint forward. We might as well get something out of the deal.

Happy shopping :)

Learning Curve

2011-10-20T20:00:00.000-05:00

I have taken over 1500 pictures since October 1st, trying to catch all the interesting things I see, which is apparently almost everything. I have read 86 pages of the instruction booklet, but am too stubborn to read the other 150 pages yet to see what else silly I didn't know. Like how to adjust the exposure - I thought that's what Auto did, but my daytime shots were washed out and wrong.

Another thing I learned is that the digital zoom doesn't work unless you have the camera set to the correct aspect ratio. I didn't even know what that did, but now I do. I'm keeping it set for more zoom. I can never have enough zoom or enough macro.

I learned that you can take pictures in vivid color mode, which thrilled me to no end, and probably requires an apology for the eye aches some of the photos cause.

I learned that sometimes, the reason everything is out of focus is not because the camera is too high tech for my old brain, but because the dog put a snotty noseprint on the lens, or somebody's fingerprint made a smudge.I learned that I can take pictures in all kinds of funny modes, like fishbowl, miniature, sepia, color swap. I had big time playing with those.

I don't know what I'll do with all this knowledge, and I can't imagine what I'll learn in the back two thirds of the manual. I am sure that I will keep taking way too many pictures, and that no matter how much I read or learn, sometimes taking a good picture is about just showing up with a camera and pressing the button.

Happy Friday

2011-10-14T21:36:00.002-05:00

These pictures aren't too bad considering I was driving when I took them. Honest, I never took my eyes off the road. And I'm pretty sure I was slowing to a stop for the last one, otherwise it would be a great deal blurrier. I took them on Wednesday, but Happy Friday anyhow.

They lose something in the small size, I like them better clicked and enlarged to get the feel of them. I can't tell you the number of times I've felt compelled to point my camera out the car window or the sun roof, because the sky was so blue, the clouds were so white and the midwest landscape just cried out to be remembered. It happens most often in the fall, just before the crops are harvested and the trees are bare. There is something so bittersweet and beautiful about it that I wish I could just pull over and soak it in. Maybe because I know what's coming. I've never been one to look forward to winter, especially since I moved here, forever ago.

Wasn't the moon something this week? This shot sucks compared to what I saw - the clouds were hugging it just so, the planes were buzzing past, and as I put the camera down, one plane flew right across the bright white of the moon and it was something else. I wished there was someone in the car with me to say Would you just look at that!? to, but I had to settle for me and my camera. The blurry picture is better than nothing I suppose.

I know that change is in the air: the cold front blasted through yesterday, wreaking havoc with the scenery and ushering those glorious last sunny days far from here. Change is in the air, all around.

I'm going back to work, part time, my first real job in almost 15 years. It's time. College sticker shock is reason enough, but there's plenty of good reasons for getting a job now. I'm thankful to find one in this economy. I was beginning to feel old and obsolete after throwing my hat in the ring 7 times for one nibble. But that nibble bit, and on this Halloween I'll be doing the spookiest thing I've done in a long time - starting over again, again. The best part is I will get to feel good about what I'll be doing, working at the local college in the testing center, where hopeful people will be coming for their GED's, continuing education and work testing. Hopefully my work will help other people find their own work. I like that idea, and I'm thinking that this change can only do me good.

I hope interesting things are afoot in your world, and for some of you (Ms. Moon!!) I know they are! Have a great weekend.

I'd Like Some More of This Too, Please....

2011-10-08T14:17:00.002-05:00

We have been on a run of extraordinary October weather. Here is the forecast for the coming week. This is the longest stretch of October consecutive days of 100% sunshine since 1934. We are basking in temperatures 30 degrees higher than a week ago. Everything is sunny, warm and golden. I'm trying not to be too greedy, but of course I want more.

I'm soaking every drop of sunshine in, and taking pictures to get me through the coming winter, which is predicted to break records for low temperatures and blizzards. One weatherman said this winter will make Chicago residents want to move. As if it doesn't already.

I'll cross that bridge when I get there. For now, it's all sunshine and smiles here.

Hope it's lovely where ever you are.

I'd like 25 more please

2011-10-04T08:51:00.001-05:00

How often can you say you know exactly what you were doing 25 years ago today? Some days I can't remember what I did 25 minutes ago. But today, my long term memory is perfect.

When we decided to get married, the date was easy to pick. It was the first weekend without a sailboat race, 10-4-1986.

About a million kisses later, there are no more sailboats, but there are kids. Who knew? I was never getting married and I was never having kids. I'm glad I was wrong.

The years flew right by, they really did. And how we are celebrating? No fancy trips or dinners tonight, just salty popcorn and cold pizza from the concession stands. Our youngest (#4) has a volleyball match, and our oldest is golfing in the regional qualifiers today in perfect weather. Very exciting stuff.

The symmetry here is that sports are driving the schedule, and that just like the day we got married, we both are fighting nasty headcolds. We got sick on our wedding day, and kleenexes went everywhere with us on our honeymoon, and here we are 25 years later with kleenexes and stuffy heads, just like old times. That fancy dinner can wait until we can taste food again.

It's been a great ride. I couldn't have imagined this future, and I can't imagine where the next 25 will take us, but one thing I'm certain of - it will be interesting and there will be kisses.

Happy Anniversary Honey.

XXOO

Playing Catchup

2011-09-27T14:14:00.001-05:00

I've been wrangling two teenagers and a dog, doing dishes and laundry, driving the mom taxi, going to volleyball games and golf matches, trying to wrap my head around the hoopla that is modern Homecoming week, trying to navigate the stressful college selection process for the oldest, trying to figure out my new camera which I alternate between loving and hating, interviewing for a part time job at the local college, finishing my book and trying to write a relevant review and fighting a really snotty headcold. Oh and next week is our 25th wedding anniversary. We have no plans, mostly because I'm too tired to think that far ahead and I don't want to plan anything else. Our google calendar looks like a 64 color crayon box, and the greatest gift I can think of is not cooking anything and not doing dishes either. I imagine I am not exactly a hot date lately. My dad taught me to sing the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be and now I see the humor in that song as I sing it in my head when I feel overwhelmed.

Anyway, Nightwoods was a very satisfying read for me, because I loved the writing style, loved the characters, was very drawn into the story and did not guess the ending, not exactly. I hate when stories and movies are too predictable. I gained a lot of life philosophy to ponder reading that book, and I marked dozens of pages to reread and let it sink in a bit better.

The new camera is a high end point and shoot, the Canon G12, which is really heavy after my Powershot, and full of technomagic I don't quite understand. I'm enjoying the extra couple mm's of macro but I'm struggling with anything but letting it decide what to do on automatic, and it shoots more slowly than I had expected it to, but I'm still learning. Here's a few pictures from the past two week's walkabouts.

There is a chill in the air, and the gardens are eking out their last blooms as the trees are beginning to lose their leaves. I'm trying to pay attention, because I know the long season of browns and greys and whites will be here soon, and I'll be ticking off the days until the ground awakens again next Spring.

I've enjoyed visiting your worlds through pictures, and love that blogging lets me see the subtle changes in the seasons all over the continent and the globe. Hopefully I'll see or think enough of interest to share here more often, as I admit to being a lazy and inconsistent blogger, especially when my life is crazy, which I expect is the new normal. Also, hopefully I'll figure out how to work my new camera so it better captures what my eye sees, because there is something striking or beautiful around every corner.

Until then....

Nightwoods

2011-09-16T21:25:00.002-05:00

Oh, I love LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program. I am not exactly lucky when it comes to winning things, so I was happy to get one of the 25 books 1230 readers requested - 2% odds, and I can be one of three in a drawing and lose every time. Lucky me this time. Free books for the courtesy of a review are among the best things to happen to me in the last 5 years. I'm looking forward to reading Charles Frazier again, it's been a long time since I read Cold Mountain and I know that man can write.

I love a story set in the Carolina Mountains, and I love a strong, interesting, complex female character. Vicki Lane and Kathryn Magendie are two fine writers in this genre as well, and I love their work. I was overdue for another good mountain read, so I was very excited when my book arrived yesterday.

This story reeled me in from the first pages, as the main character, Luce, grapples with raising her murdered sister Lily's strange children alone in a remote, abandoned resort lake lodge. Intriguing story - check. Great writing - double check. Chapter One just spoke to my heart over and over again. I wanted to sticky note about four passages; I wanted to memorize whole paragraphs of prose. I'm going to try to pace myself, to make it last. And I'm going to share some of the words, just in case they might speak to anyone else. Enjoy.

.......

Also, the children were here, and what was Luce to do? You try your best to love the world despite obvious flaws in design and execution. And you take care of whatever needy things present themselves to you during your passage through it. Otherwise you're worthless.

........

WHEN SHE LIVED ALONE, Luce didn't go to the upper floors often, but not out of fear. Not really. It was little but bedsteads and cobwebs up there, and she didn't want to believe in ghosts or anything similar. Not even the portents of bad dreams. Yet the fading spirit world touched her imagination pretty strong when she was awake at three in the morning, alone in the big place. The dark sleeping floors, with their musty transient pens and cribs for the guests and their help spooked her. The place spoke of time. How you're here and then you're gone, and all you leave for a little while afterward are a few artifacts that outlive you.

Case in point, old Stubblefield, who had owned the Lodge for the past few decades. Luce visited him several times during his dying days, and she was there at the end to watch the light go out of his eyes. In the final hours, Stubblefield mostly cataloged his possessions and listed who should get what........ The silver candleholders were a heavy weight on Stubblefield's mind because his wife had loved them so much. Oddly, he left them to Luce, who didn't love them at all and probably never would.

Easy to be disdainful and ironic toward other's false values. Still, Luce hoped that when she was at the same thin margin of life she would be concerned with looking out the window to note the weather or the shape of the moon or some lone bird flying by. Certainly not a bunch of worn-out teaspoons. But Luce was half a century younger than old Stubblefield, and didn't know how she'd think and what she would value if she made it that far down the road. All her life, the main lesson Luce had learned was that you couldn't count on anybody. So she guessed you could work hard to make yourself who you wanted to be and yet find that the passing years had transformed you beyond your own recognition. End up disappointed in yourself, despite your best efforts. And that's the downward way Luce's thoughts fell when ever she went upstairs into the dreary past.

.........

Luce opened envelopes at random, reading until she reached a sentence where it became impossible not to become critical of Lily's fatal hope and trust in other people. Everybody Lily met was so wonderful, and the shiny future stretched forever. Every page held evidence against her. Luce never made it all the way through any of the letters before she returned them to Lily's precise folds.

Luce decided not to read them again until she could appreciate them more. Some far day when she had become a better person and could feel something besides stinging anger that her beautiful, gentle sister had not protected herself more carefully against a world of threat.

........

Maybe it's just me, but I needed to read some of those words right now. Sometimes books find you at exactly the right time.

I've had a reading drought since I burned out on the Game of Thrones bricks months ago, so I'm ready to read again, something with a soul and a purpose. Hope this one primes the pump and I get my reading mojo back. My to be read pile is not getting any smaller, and I'm not getting any younger. So off I go to bed with a book, and a head full of thoughts from the bit I've read so far.

Happy reading, and happy weekend.

Lake Effect On a Clear Day

2011-09-09T12:10:00.001-05:00

On a clear day, from atop my neighborhood hill, I can see the Sears Tower, now the Willis Building, from 43 miles away. It's a fuzzy zoom, but it's just to the right of the water tower in the center.

This week, cool fall air met warm lake air.

A mountain of clouds covered the eastern horizon.

These are not storm clouds, just warm air from the lake.

The clouds covered the entire length of the lake, from North to South, too vast for a camera to capture.

It was a beautiful and humbling sight, realizing that the lake made a mirror image of itself in clouds,

while we watched from clear skies miles away.

I couldn't look at the view without hearing Barbra sing this song.

Hope you enjoy the view and the voice.

Paying Attention

2011-09-03T20:18:00.002-05:00

My photo OCD is in overdrive, again.

I'm hoarding memories in pictures, but I'm OK with that.

Everywhere I look there is something Amazing to notice.

Attention must be paid.

I can't trust my memory, I need the pictures.

Happy little surprises are everywhere.

Some a little sad, maybe, but still Amazing.

Some are adorable, at least to me.

A million little universes everywhere....

Full of sublime, fragile beauty.

Paying attention makes me happy.

Calm.

Hopeful.

And even in the mundane, late night dog walks,

there are still surprises to discover.

Early morning dog walks, half asleep, grass wet and sticky,

there are still Amazing things to see, hear and smell.

(I guess I should be more grateful for the dog.)

So when I'm not rushing around,

stressing out,

driving in my car,

feeling older than my years,

and hurrying through my life,

I try to remember to

slow down and look around.

To pay attention and look for the next

Amazing Thing.

to cross my path.

It's the least I can do for myself.

Hope you get to pay attention

and have Amazing things find you too.

Soggy but Safe

2011-08-28T09:45:00.000-05:00

The Delmarva Peninsula is home to what remains of my family. I've watched the news from the balmy Midwest and worried about their safety during the latest storm of the century. The Delaware and Maryland families are fine with minimal tree loss, and they didn't lose power until daylight, which is a small blessing. The Virginia clan is fine, but likely flooded, as they live on the skinniest part of the tail of the peninsula, and the storm hit at high tide. These things have happened before, they will likely happen again. Hopefully not any time soon. Everyone is safe, which is all that truly matters.

Hurricane Irene wasn't as mean as she could have been, but she sure was huge. We've had more than a few jokes about the name of this storm, as my mom's Aunt Irene was as huge as she was cranky, and she was slow moving and scary, too.

Delaware, Maryland and Virginia didn't get much media coverage in the wake of the big storm, but that's OK. We never could compete with the Jersey shore or big cities, and more importantly, we never wanted to. The winds and rains weren't as awful as everyone was prepared for, which is a blessing when you live a few feet above sea level. There were a few homes damaged by tornadoes, a few downed trees and some power outages, but all things considered, my family was lucky. They're soggy, but relieved. I'm relieved, and maybe a little guilty, enjoying some of the best weather of the year, thanks to the high pressure Irene has kept pushed over us in the middle.

Hopefully the flooding will be minimal in the upper states as Irene marches slowly and dissipates.

In the calm after the storm, I wish for many lovely mushrooms like these found after our last downpour.

Hope you and your loved ones are all safe and sound.

I'm going to miss you, Target

2011-08-24T08:43:00.001-05:00

I have already transitioned away from all things Koch Brothers (Angel Soft, Quilted Northern, Soft N Gentle, Brawny, Dixie) because these mega-rich brothers lobby for and fund policies I find ethically, environmentally and socially reprehensible. But now I have to stop shopping at Home Depot and Target too??? Ok, it hurts, but I will do what I can to stop funding the madness. I'm going to miss you guys, but your politics suck. Target not only donated to Michelle Bachman's political campaign, they support anti-choice and anti-gay policies. And if you know me at all, you know I think Bachman makes Palin look normal, and I love my freedom of choice and my gay family and friends.

Lest I offend any of my handful of readers, I claim no membership in our two party system. I love the Constitution, especially the parts that ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and I'm pretty taken with the separation of Church and State part too. I'm a moderate, a libertarian (according to the political affiliation quiz I took), and most importantly, the grandaughter of a woman who resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution because of their racist policies in the 1950's, a woman who fiercely loved this country, and taught us to do the same. It's important to have some standards, and if corporations are using my dollars to support policies that undermine the ideals my ancestors fought and died for when they built this country, the very least I can do is shop somewhere else. I hope you do too.

Big business special interests have no place in politics. I'm pretty sure the founding fathers would agree.

Big Corporations Donating to Conservative Agendas

If you'd like a little more nausea with your morning coffee, you might want to know a little about ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, where the Koch Brothers, lawyers and state legislators meet to craft legislation for proposal at the state level that is pro business and anti everything else I hold dear - consumer protection, environment, worker's rights, - you know, the usual screw the regular citizen and keep the rich rich bullshit. Currently under investigation by the IRS for abuse of non-profit status, and despite their claims, there is nothing non-partisan or transparent about what they are doing. Again, I'm pretty sure the founding fathers would beat these people with a cane if they could.

ALEC Exposed

That's enough political outrage for one morning. Have a nice, earthquake and hurricane free day.

Kurt Vonnegut on the Shape of Stories

2011-08-11T09:30:00.001-05:00

This made my day.

What shape is your story? Mine looks like a can of worms :)

Blame it on Mrs. Moon

2011-08-08T18:38:00.006-05:00

Well she started it. I haven't done a damn thing all day but sit here at my laptop getting a numb ass. I've had worse uses of my time, but I wanted to give credit. Mrs. Moon blogged about Annie Proulx's new book, about building her house, Bird Cloud, in Wyoming, where we all know it is too damn cold to live in the winter. Where I know that in the mountains, it can snow in the summer, because I spent the most formative summer of my misspent youth in the Bighorn Mountains and have a major soft spot for Wyoming. I used to imagine I'd live in a cabin on a stream someday, like Annie, but different. I had to know MORE. So off I went a-googling, and a-reading, hence my numb butt.

One rabbit hole led to another, because Ms. Proulx has a fondness for the band The Gourds, and I've been listening to them all day for free, and you can too, right here:

Radio Free Gourds

If you want extra connectedness, listen to this youtube clip of them singing Dying in the Pines in Asheville, NC. Small world. Better yet, click the first link and let the popup turntable spin while you read. Song number 5, Last Letter, reminds me of Traffic and the 60's a bit, moodwise and number 11, Steeple full of Swallows, sounds like the Band, and makes me so melancholy I can hardly take it, but in a good way. I'm smitten. This bloggy day will cost me more than time, in books and music.

So, Annie Proulx. After I read this article in the LA Times and this one in the NYTimes, I was unable to stop thinking about her and her Wyoming adventure. Her house. Her books. The view out her window.

For one, I can't imagine living alone up there, so isolated, especially in my 70's. I sense there is a distance between her and her family, as she said she's never talked about her writing with her kids. I try to wrap my head around that. Mom's a famous writer but we don't mention it. Ever.

And for two, if I was going to live alone in the hinterlands of Wyoming, I would sure as heck make a few friends in the town where I'd have to go for supplies. I get that the point of moving up there is to be a loner, and after 30 years of Vermont I guess Wyoming made some sense. Slightly lower sparse population of rugged individualists spread across ten times the acreage - from 67 to 5 people per square mile, actually. I looked it up. I guess she wanted to be ALONE. But I would have mingled, sat at the corner coffee store or bar and soaked it in, the culture, the connection to the land. I met some of the best people I've ever known out there, it's so stripped down and real. They look out for each other, or at least they did in 1981.

And the scenery. Good lord. Mount St. Helens blew that year, and the sunsets were unreal. I dream of going back there all the time. I mean I have real dreams, dozens of them, where I drive back up that mountain and let the thin air clear my head. I always wake both happy and sad. I could fill my own short story book with the tales I collected and the things I saw and did. A few bad, mostly good. Maybe someday. Anyway, I think maybe Annie missed out on the best stuff, but what do I know.

I know I will always remember this man, and this view.

My favorite cowboy, and personal superhero, John Kukuchka. He let me drive that jeep all over the mountain. He also let me ride horses and round up cows and fix fence and he gave me my very own shit stained Stetson, one of my prized possessions. He rescued me when I had nowhere to go and he told me his stories. I never thanked him enough.


One of the twin buttes. I hiked to the top and sat and dangled my feet from the edge. It was heaven, or as close as I imagine I'll ever get, 2 miles up in the sky.

My favorite Wyoming memory has no picture, because it was at night, and my friend and I slept under the stars on the ground to watch for meteors. I never felt so small and amazed and part of everything any more than I did that night.

I remember everything.... the smell of the pines, the rocks strewn like handfuls of dice in the streams, the taste of fresh trout grilled for breakfast, the sound of a moose snorting in the willows, the sight of a dead pronghorn caught on a barbed wire fence, frost in July, chokecherry syrup on my pancakes, the sound of a porcupine shooting it's needles, Willie singing whiskey river on the jukebox, the easy camaraderie of the unlikeliest of people - loggers, ranchers, hippies, tourists, locals - the look in the eyes of a scarred man who had one two many beer and whiskey's and told me his life story..... I remember it all.

So I'm sad that Annie went there to be alone. It can be a lonely place even if you're not alone. And I'm not surprised that it didn't turn out to be what she expected. Nothing ever really is, at least in my experience.

Anyway, thanks, Mary for the numb butt and the trip down both Annie's mushy lane and my own mushy memory lane. And thanks for songs number 5 & 11, for giving these memories a soundtrack.

USA Inc. Fiscal Report 2011

2011-08-03T12:38:00.001-05:00

Well, this blew my mind. I have been digging around the internet for meaningful data about the economy and our fiscal problems for weeks, because you can't trust the spin each party puts on the numbers to support their politics.

I found what I wanted and learned yet again to be careful what you wish for.

I follow Bill Gates on twitter, and he recommended this independent financial analysis of the USA's current fiscal quagmire. Please give the video a listen or better yet, give the report a look. Share it with anyone with a brain so we can begin to understand the scope of the problem, which is as much about demographics as it is about dollars. I'm a third through the report and my head and my heart hurt. If we all symbolically hold hands together through this, maybe we won't be so scared.

The Video:

The Report:

USA Inc. - A Basic Summary of America's Financial Statements

This imbed is amazing, you can enlarge or change pages using the buttons at the bottom. For fun, jump to page 72 to see that we spent more total dollars on health care in 2007 than the other 30 countries in the report combined. This report is rich and dense with data, presented in easily understood graphs and charts.

I believe this is the most important post I have shared yet. Please share this with everyone you know, so that we might begin the hard work of making informed choices for the future.

The Mermaid Tree

2011-07-20T08:48:00.001-05:00

Can you see her?

I've walked and biked past this tree countless times in the 14 years I've lived here.
How had I never noticed? I thought I noticed everything.

She looks wistful, wishing, longing for the sea, land bound or lost.

I keep finding treasure in the most unexpected places.

I picked this yucca blossom to smell the fragrance.

It's a wonder I didn't sniff up the tiny white moths who lived there.

Perfectly camouflaged, hiding in plain sight.

I have to remember that there is always something beautiful and mysterious waiting to be seen.

All I have to do is look.

Sometimes no farther than my daughter's eyes.

Luna and Friends

2011-07-09T10:17:00.000-05:00

Another trip to the mountains, and what moths I found! This newly emerged luna let us hold her before we set her free. I hope she found a mate and laid dozens of eggs. I can't explain my attraction to them, they may as well be kittens, that's how much I want to hold them. Maybe I am crazy. They don't need to be held, but I can't help myself. I chased down a cecropia at the Ingalls grocery store and set it out of harms way, but didn't have my camera. Here's some of the cuties I did catch with my camera.

The butterflies were everywhere, so lovely, but it's the moths I am drawn to. I'm happy that this trip I found more live ones than I did dead. I know the critters have to eat too, but still....

Hope your summer is filled with magic too.

Todd Is.....

2011-06-25T17:00:00.013-05:00

...my new favorite artist of all time. Seriously.

Thanks to Rogert Ebert's tweet about a friend's article,
resurrection of the renaissance man, an homage to Todd Rundgren, I fell down a rabbit hole and my summer has been transformed, both musically and mentally. I think I have a bit of a crush now, truth be told.

I started clicking the video links and remembered how much I loved Todd ages ago, and realized I didn't know a damn thing about the man or his music now. So I learned, I read, I listened. I am in awe. He puts so much of himself into his music, and he's just a great guy, brilliant, wickedly articulate, refreshingly honest, funny, a good husband and father, and a fascinating artist, one who never sold out, never stopped learning and growing. An all around amazing guy.

I learned, among other things that on his Something/Anything album (It Wouldn't Have Made any Difference, Hello it's Me) he wrote, performed, sang, recorded and produced the album himself, even figured out how to fit more tracks on the vinyl. He is the total package. How many artists can match that? His music video Time Heals was among the first ever shown on MTV and he made it himself, because in addition to musician, he's one seriously smart guy and a complete computer geek. Oh, and he also produced some monster albums like Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, and a list of who's who bands from the 70's and 80's like the Band, Grand Funk, the Cars, the Tubes, the Psychedelic Furs, Hall and Oats, Patti Smith and many others. While I wasn't listening to Todd, I was listening to almost everything he had a hand in producing, I just didn't realize it at the time.

On his recent album, Arena, which he recorded at 60, on a Mac all by his lonesome at home in Hawaii, he channels AC/DC, Robin Trower and some ZZ Top type vibes to express his outrage at the Bush administration and his wish for us to collectively man up as a nation. I wish I had it to listen to when I was awash in my own outrage. I've listened to it dozens of times and it keeps getting better. I'm especially hooked on the song Afraid. His current album Todd Rundgren's Johnson is a cover of Eric Clapton covering Robert Johnson's blues and is very well done. Coming out next is ReProduction, Todd's dance covers of hit songs he produced for other bands, including Love My Way, Dear God, Walk Like a Man, Out of My Mind - I can hardly wait. There aren't many genres or ideas he hasn't explored. Say what you will about Todd, but he is never boring, always interesting, always chasing his inner muse. I have had a blast catching up with his work since the 80's, and although I'm sorry I missed those decades since, I've really enjoyed plugging into the matrix of his music and his life in one massive upload.

Here are a few wonderful youtube clips showing just a little of Todd's amazing vocal and musical range. In his 60's he still has it going on.

For the Want of a Nail - a soul fest with Daryll Hall - which got me hooked on the Live from Daryl's House series. Amazing stuff - you should play it while you do the dishes. You'll be dancing and singing in no time - don't hold back, don't hold back, Heyyyy!

Pretending to Care - a song so powerful that about three minutes in, brought tears to my eyes. Originally recorded on his A Capella album, which used no instruments, just multiple tracks of Todd's voice. In this live performance he is accompanied by Ethel, a fabulous string quartet.

Can We Still Be Friends - my first favorite Todd song:

For a flash-back fix, try the funky Unloved Children, recorded live in Japan. Note the lovely blonde backup singer in the middle, the one and only Michelle Rundgren, an amazing person and performer in her own right.

Musically, his amazing voice, his sense of melody and harmony, coupled with his interesting chord progressions are fascinating me. Not to mention his lyrics. How can I change the world when I can't change myself? Try again tomorrow... I have so many of his songs stuck in my head, and I've found that some of his music takes a listen or two to seep in. I liken the experience to learning to enjoy different types of wine. I read an interview where Todd tried to explain why he doesn't enjoy playing his hits, as they don't interest him musically. To paraphrase, he asked if you tried a dish that was wonderful, would you want the chef to only make that for your, or would you let him cook you something else to try? I'm so very glad I let Todd expand my palate and take me on this very cool musical adventure. I wish I'd seen him on tour before now, but he'll be in Milwaukee for Summerfest and going to hear him live is at the top of my wish list.

Until then, I'm going to have be sampling his immense catalog, watching the hundreds of videos on youtube, and rewatching his guest spots on Live from Daryl's House. And I will wait for my book A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio to arrive in the mail, plus DVD's of his live performances. I've already bought dozens of mp3 downloads and a couple of cd's. Like I said, I think I have a little crush thing going on. It's been refreshing and exactly what this old soul needed.

Happy listening to whatever makes your soul sing...

On Father's Day

2011-06-19T22:26:00.000-05:00

I'm grateful for the father who raised me, who I miss very much.

And I'm grateful for the man I married, who is an amazing Dad.

Thanks to both of these men for the smiles, for the love, for showing up and working hard and caring,

and for being such good role models for their children

Lovely things

2011-06-11T20:58:00.000-05:00

Sorry so long and lame between posts. Things have been crazy busy with end of school and life in general. Our daughter's 8th grade class had their graduation ceremony this week. Isn't that odd, really, graduating from middle school? Maybe it makes sense since this is one of three feeder schools that consolidate into two giant high schools, and some of these kids will likely never see each other again.

I have trouble wrapping my brain around a high school with more students and teachers in it than the town I grew up in. Here's a picture of the procession, the ceremony and the proud parents of a lovely and very tall young lady who looks much older than an 8th grade student:

This weekend, we went for a bike ride with our daughter to two lovely parks and a River festival. It was a great day, so full of green, and so much scenery and cool air rushing past. The mosquitoes couldn't get us, and I felt as if I could ride all day. Maybe next time.

Here's a few pictures of a few more of my favorite things from this week.

In camera news, I did all my research, decided which one I wanted and wouldn't you know it, they are sold out. Business at Canon is good. I'm kindof stuck on Canon, since my old school camera - the kind that uses film, that we bought ourselves as a wedding gift 25 years ago - has a lovely assortment of expensive lenses I'd like to use again. Oh well. Until then, I'll suffer with spotty focus and an annoying gray spot on my pictures. Worse fates could befall me. And I'm getting pretty good at aligning the pictures before I take them so I hide the spot. The Monet focus of most of my flower photos, that's another problem. On the bright side, the flowers are cycling through their blooms so quickly that there's not that much left to catch. Daylillies and sedum are mostly what's left. Sigh. It all happens so quickly, doesn't it?

I leave you with a fuzzy picture of my roses and daisies. I wish you could smell the roses, they are lovely. I don't think they've invented that camera yet.

And the winner is...

2011-06-03T18:39:00.003-05:00

OK. Maybe I'm hormonal or going through a phase, but NASA's winning video for Earth Day made me cry.

You should watch it, because Fiona made a lovely tribute to our little planet and just her voice alone merits a listen. She did a great job trying to articulate the importance of respecting our home. Hope you like it too.

And this one made me laugh and feel happy on the inside. Thumbs up for Rock and Roll!!

I'm going to watch this one anytime I need to feel happy of myself!

Flower Flies

2011-06-02T08:40:00.005-05:00

They're also called Hover Flies or syrphid flies and this is a good year for them. They are teeny, about the size of a grain of rice, and I'm just about obsessed with them this year. Their patterns are lovely and the iridescent wings mesmerize me. They don't sit still long, so I've spent countless hours bending over my shrubs and iris waiting for one to chill out long enough to snap a photo. They're the reason I'm going out shopping for a new camera because my little Canon point and shoot is just about done. I've rolled the counter on the poor thing over three times so it deserves to retire. I need some more macro mojo, some more pixels and a battery that lasts more than half an hour. Anyway, here's a few of dozens I took that were almost in focus.

I caught a few having a romantic moment. I'm not sure how long it lasts, but they flew around attached like this while I watched.

Speaking of bee-like creatures, I found a site called beetracker through a twitter science link, and they're asking people to send in photos of bees they see in Illinois, as there appears to be a significant decline this year. I've been looking for the last three days, and I'm hoping the wind and recent monsoon rains are the reason I've only seen three. In past years, my siberian iris were bumble bee favorites, and I loved to watch them crawl inside for the pollen. This year I have seen one bumblebee, struggling in the May March weather we enjoyed this Spring. This rollercoaster has flung us from ridiculously late frost warnings to 90 degree muggy hell within days. It's now a June August windfest, so I should pull out the kites and make the best of it, and just be glad the mosquitoes are getting blown around too much to bite. They're going to be insufferable after the last wet spell.

Cue the Monty Python song:

Always look on the bright side of life.....

The plants keep growing no matter what insane weather we have, and maybe the honey bees are missing, but the little flower flies are pollinating and mating in droves. And - my lovely neighbors put up a bluebird house, and the proud parents are frequent visitors to my yard. Bluebirds are a first for me here, and I smile inside everytime I see them. Maybe when I get that new camera I can even take a picture worth posting. That's all for now, I have to go play outside, maybe even go fly a kite.

American Pie

2011-05-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

After a Newsweek article listed Grand Rapids, Michigan as one of America's Dying Cities, the town responded with this privately funded and amazing video. It gave me goosebumps. Hope you like it too.

Remembering all who have sacrificed their lives for their country on this Memorial Day.

Blogger sucks - Again...

2011-05-29T14:27:00.000-05:00

I can't comment on most of your posts. Once in a while I get through, maybe 1 out of 20 tries.. I click on any blog I follow and I'm logged out. I have logged in to blogger probably 50 times in the last three days. I am tired of trying. I am still reading all my favorite blogs and would comment if I could.

Blogger should be ashamed. They have issued a one sentence update indicating a "known issue with login errors" since May 24, or as I like to call it, 5 freaking days ago, with no fix in sight. After the complete outage earlier this month and the permanent loss of comments from so many sites I frequent, I can't help but wonder what is next, because from where I sit, it looks like the wheels are falling off.

I used to blog on the ning, and I've dabbled in Wordpress, and there are so many other options for blogging that I wonder how much longer I'll put up with a faulty product before I just move on. The only thing that's keeping me tethered here is the community and the friends I've come to know and love, and the sheer headache involved with starting over.

Thanks, Blogger, for giving me a voice and an incredible network of great blogs, and then hitting the mute button so I can only watch, silent and furious from the sidelines, while you give no indication you are even working on this problem, or a clue when it might be fixed.

There you have it. Blogger sucks, again.

In the blink of an eye...

2011-05-10T15:51:00.001-05:00

I wish I could slow down Spring and watch it in slow motion, rewind, pause, and make it last longer. I am greedy that way. I've been doing what I do every May - taking an insane amount of pictures, fighting with my digital point and shoot camera, trying to catch what I'm seeing so I can look at it some more. I keep all my pictures archived on my hard drive by date, partly so I can compare variations in bloom time over the years.I used to keep one of those garden journals, but photos are my shorthand these days. I guess this is what retired lab geeks must do with their spare brain capacity, so I can know that the lovely yellow-green narcissus bud from my last post bloomed in all it's glory last week, May 1st to be exact.

Last year, April 15th:

2009, April 30:

2008, May 1st:

And so on. I think there might be a trend with the two week back and forth thing, but I didn't look back any farther. I've lived here 14 years and I never cease to be amazed and surprised by what will and won't grow here, and how different and yet the same each year can be.

Anyhow, I've been wallowing in this Spring, begging it to slow down, just like every year. I can take all the pictures I want, nature doesn't care. She just marches on in her mysterious ways.

Here are a few more pretty things that had made me happy since my last post, some wild or native, some cultivated, all loved.

It's almost too much isn't it?

Every time I snap pictures like this, I hear a voice in my head, from the finale of one of my favorite shows, Six Feet Under, where Nate's ghost tells his sister Claire who takes one last photo of her family before she leaves home to start her life: You can't take a picture of this, it's already gone.

Maybe so. But still we try to, don't we?

Finally, here are two things I love most, my babies all grown up on Mother's Day.

Now I really, really wish I had a pause and rewind button for my life!

Hope something lovely is growing and blooming where ever you are.

p.s.

If you want to hear the wisdom of Nate, it's on the video link at the bottom of the page, 2:16.
I miss that show.

Faithful Flower Friends

2011-04-30T16:43:00.001-05:00

I love a warm, sunny blue sky April day filled with flowers. I wish I had nothing to do but lounge outside and visit with them. They feel like old friends, and I don't deserve them, as I never take enough good care, but they show up anyway, faithfully, every year, just like my human friends.

Some I planted, some volunteered, some have been here long before me and probably will be here long after me, given just a little warmth, sunshine and rain. Sorry so long between posts, but I've been busy with life, and spending my spare time outside with my camera. April's photo file is 500 plus, and I must learn to be a better editor. But deleting some of their pictures feels like unfriending a friend, so it is a slow and difficult process. I used to delete all the out of focus ones, but lately, their Monet quality appeals to me, especially as my own eyesight continues to worsen, and most of my world is out of focus in one way or another anyway.

Maybe I'll post some Monets soon, but for now, these are as crisp and fresh as an April morning.

Hope it's mostly sunshine and lovely wherever you are, and hope you take some time

to make friends with the flowers too.

Woodland Emergence

2011-04-14T09:15:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned before that my front yard is not actually a yard, but the edge of an Oak-Hickory Woodland. I've let it be, for the most part, to the chagrin of my husband, who likes the suburban look to his lawns. He gets the back yard, and the woods are mine. The woods, the wild flowers and the wild life are the best part of living here, even if our house has a bit of a white trash or hillbilly vibe to it. It suits me. And every Spring I run around the woods and the yard like a kid in a candy store, excited to see all my friends again.

The brambles are budding out. Wild Rose, Gooseberry and Wild Black Raspberry all have leaves now.

Mayapples have poked their heads from the ground. I love how they seem to offer their flower seed up like a treasure, or a baby for blessing from the sun.

Trilliums are up everywhere, almost overnight.

Interestingly, as mild as this Spring has been, we are a week to two weeks behind last year's emergence. I have only the tiniest hint of the trout lilies up, and they were in full bloom a week ago last year. The wild phlox have plenty of leaves up and I hope they don't get frostbit before April is done with us. Thankfully the cherry shrub is waiting longer to bloom this year, since last year's hard frost destroyed all the fruit. I'm really looking forward to some tart jelly this year. I can only wait and hope. Nature has her own plan and schedules, and they remain a mystery to me, as I watch every day, humbled, amazed and grateful.

Visual Overload

2011-04-11T07:44:00.018-05:00

When April hands you a sunny weekend with summer temperatures, you run with it. Well, I didn't run, but I did everything else. I traipsed through the nearby woods to look for more lovely fungus. Besides the joy of no people, no mosquitoes, no brambles and no ticks, there was the surprise of these bloodroot in their endless variation.

While I snapped photos, a pair of hawks shrieked overhead. I don't think they appreciated me wandering so close to their nest.

The lovely cecropia colored fungi had dried up, but I found much more to ooh and ahh over. I could fill a book with pictures of mosses, lichens and fungus from this few acres of woods, set aside as open space by the township.
This downed tree, one of dozens that kept me wondering what storms I had missed, mesmerized me with its abstract patterns.
As I was heading out of the woods, I happened upon this skull, deer I assume.

The weather was glorious, so I made the most of it. After my walk in the woods, I spent some time in my own yard. I weeded, cleared the garden, turned in the compost, and busted my knuckle on the wheelbarrow.
I took some pictures of the pretties in between chores. These are called glory of the snow, and they are described as blue or purple blue in my garden books, but they still look lavender to me. The striped squill have spread all over the front yard and the woods. They are a tiny, happy surprise every Spring. And I guess they are kindof blue, so much for my declaration of no blue flowers.

The tulips emerged and bloomed in a matter of days. I never cease to be amazed. If all this wasn't enough, I went for a long walk in a riverside forest preserve with the dog while the daughter volunteered at the animal shelter. I saw some things, oh yes, I did.

This little fox was wandering boldly along the side of the road, checking in every nook and cranny for something to eat. I snapped these from the car, and followed him for as long as I could. I even called to it, silly me, because I had dog biscuits and crackers and wanted to share them. I didn't realize until I saw the pictures that the eyes were closed in every shot. I hope it is squinting in the bright sun and not blind as it appears to be. I can't stop wondering about the little thing, wishing to keep it fed and safe. Oh, what to do in the face of such things.
Then, more mysteries. What the heck is going on here? This pole goes through this tree and out a branch, resting on the branch of a neighboring tree. It must have been done years ago, but by who, and how and why?
If that wasn't exciting enough, how about this old man in the tree? I laughed as I snapped these pictures.
Then there were the fossil rocks, strewn amid the glacial till and boulders, just waiting for me to find. Imagine, an ocean in Illinois, eons ago, its evidence carried here by a glacier and dumped in the prairie. And this strange growth on a tree whose name I've forgotten - cedar maybe? Then these tiny, lovely mosses. I was beside myself.

Yes, it was a very full day. April 10, 84 degrees, and I got to spend most of it outside. My eyes saw more than my brain could process, just like most days.

Now April is returning to its regularly scheduled programming, but I hear rumors of more unseasonably mild days ahead. I'll be ready for them. And I'll take anyone who wants to come along with me.

True Colors

2011-04-08T08:18:00.008-05:00

These are not true to the eye, except for the whites. Photography is complicated!

The crocus I planted a few years ago are beginning to take off, and every Spring I love to see them poking in defiance through the barren brown ground. I've been trying to catch their color, with little success. I've spent some time Googling why purple shows up blue, and well, it's complicated. And my little camera and my little brain are not up to the task of correcting them either at the front or the back end of the process. Just trust me when I tell you there are no blue flowers in my yard, but there are a lot of lovely purples. And the pictures that look purple are a pale imitation of the purple my eyes see. Feel free to copy and photoshop or crayola the right color onto these lovely posies for your amusement.

I snagged a photo off the internet of the true purple of my tiny iris for comparison, and you can see how far off they are:
Anyway, no matter what colors you are seeing, or photographing, hope you have a Happy Friday!

Music Like No Other

2011-04-05T14:25:00.009-05:00

When I was a child, I sang in choir, and the blending of voices into one always filled my soul with joy. I cried happy tears through every note of this TED video, and hope you enjoy it too. Get out a tissue, and hear the magic of the internet, youtube and connections through music across the globe. We here know very well the community and love that forms between people who have never met.

(If you don't have 14 minutes, the good stuff without the background starts at 2:45, 6:30 and especially 11:00)

Full video and more good stuff links here.

Sunshine and Citrus

2011-04-04T09:02:00.008-05:00

I'm back. I didn't even mention I was leaving, but I was just too strung out trying to get ready to go away for Spring Break with the family to write. I became practically insane getting ready to leave: pissy, near tears, fretting over the details, worried about leaving my dog, angry at everyone for not helping me clean, plan and pack, my usual pre-vacation mess. I don't transition well, but I was desperate for some sunshine. Even taking 5000 IU's a day of vitamin D, I can't get my levels up near normal. So I picked Florida for the one vacation fits all spot- golf for the boys, theme parks for the girls, a mini visit with the mother in law to appease my 2 years of guilt, and it was all good. Despite crazy weather, crazy logistics, crazy crowds, we did it all, everybody was happy and nothing went wrong, except a few storms and a lot of wrong turns.

Once I got where I was going, I let it all go, all the tension and angst, and despite weird, crazy dream disrupted sleep in a strange bed, I went with the flow. Took it all in. Rode a few rides and roller coasters that scared the crap out of me, made me scream like a girl, laugh like a kid and feel very, very alive; watched people, soaked up the sun and green and flowers, watched lightning shows like none I've ever seen, walked for days until my bones ached, ate the best fish and citrus and honey of my life - and then came screeching back to normal. I think I can make it to better weather here now.

Sorry I've neglected this blog, and I'm so far behind on all my favorites it will be a while before I get caught up. But I will.

Hope all is well in your world.

Snow drops and Crocus

2011-03-23T09:52:00.006-05:00

They come and go too quickly.

Abstracts by Nature

2011-03-21T12:09:00.007-05:00

My walk in the woods today was nothing but eye candy. The township had taken out some damaged trees, and the exposed stumps were incredible. I would have paid a pretty penny for a few decent slices of the most colorful box elder. It doesn't seem natural that wood can turn so many different colors, but there it is, lovely proof of nature's artistic talents.

Colorful wood slices and matching shotgun shell.

Hinges or fasteners of some type in bonfire residue.

Wormsign.

Ant tunnels and amazing colors in a Box Elder stump.

Some slices I took home to play around with.

I'd like to try and paint something this interesting,.

More stumps.

How about that teal or aquamarine next to the garnet color?

And the best fungus I've found yet. Moth-like colors.

Thanks for coming on my walk with me.

Bits of Spring

2011-03-19T08:41:00.007-05:00

The crocus are in bloom.

The bluebirds are back!
The snowdrops are up!
The mosses are lush.

Tucker is thinking green.

And so am I.

Happy perigee moon, Happy Saturday, Happy Spring.

What to Do: Update

2011-03-16T13:43:00.008-05:00

It's really easy to feel helpless. It's almost as easy to give whatever you can spare to help relief efforts across the globe.

Global Giving is a fast easy way to get money to relief efforts in Japan. You can pay by credit card, pay pal or check. It's easy. Global giving lets you decide where the money goes. To victims of the disaster, to relief organizations, to rebuild Sendai, to the children - you choose. Or, maybe you want to support flood victims in Pakistan? Cholera victims in Haiti? Hunger victims in Chad? Wherever your heart and your urge to help lie, it's as easy as a couple of clicks, and much less stressful than watching the news unfold, helpless so far away.

Or, if you'd rather receive something for your dollars, try Joseph Gordon-Levitt's HitRecord store, which is donating proceeds of pin sales to Japanese relief funds.

The internet connects us all. And if all you can do is watch and care, hope or pray, well that counts too.

XO

Post Script: 3/17/11
I've been reading about charities and how best to help and there is so much conflicting information that my head is spinning. One article said the Japanese Government has specifically stated they do not need outside help and have sufficient funds to take care of themselves. Another article mentioned Global Giving as a less than stellar choice to donate to relief efforts. Great. Now they tell me. I used charitynavigator.org to check them out, and they rate 3 out of 4 stars, with slightly higher than normal admin costs, and CEO salaries in the 150K and up range, which always startles me for charity organizations. But the primary criticism is the claim to direct funds to specific relief efforts such as rebuilding Sendai, are only conceptual at this point, and no real action plan is in place to ensure donor's funds go where they are intended. I came across a particularly heated debate over the Send Socks to Japan web effort, with as many commenters howling that this is a ridiculous waste of money as those saying they have cold feet and need the socks. But at 34 dollars shipping for several pairs, one wonders how much food the shipping costs would buy, especially when you consider the economies of scale that large operations like military or Red Cross could bring to providing clothing.

I did find the Japanese Red Cross Web site that thanks donors for their help and provides the direct bank address to donate funds to them here.
So, what to do indeed.

As with everything in life, nothing is easy or simple.

Seek and You Shall Find

2011-03-13T20:21:00.013-05:00

It's not always what you are looking for. Here are some more treasures from my two days staring intently at a small patch of woods.
I found a lot more than my glasses.

Nature's patterns repeat themselves. These fungus remind me of coral, scallop shells, and the striped patterns in the foothills in the badlands. The shifting colors in changing humidity and temperature and the slow process of decay fascinate me: fuzzy green velvets, furry browns and beiges, slimy, gelatinous browns. Texture and color and patterns - oh my! I'll continue to keep my eye on the decomposing cherry and pine logs to see what happens next, and won't wait until I lose something to look this closely again.

Where's Waldo's Glasses?

2011-03-09T14:28:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, after much looking around the house for our last remaining dog leash, which, it turns out was in the car my son drove to school, I decided to take a long walkabout the yard and see what other macro magic I could make. It was a lovely sunny day, and I was happy as a lark.

I looked in every nook and cranny of my little acre of woods for new fungus and forgot my glasses were on top of my head, which is where I put them to see anything up close, in this case the camera screen. Focus is really tricky with my little camera in macro mode, and my glasses distort up close. Anyway, off I go, ducking under branches, rooting aroung in the woods in a very random fashion. I started cleaning up some brush piles, stacking some downed limbs, taking the occasional picture and throwing the occasional tennis ball for the dog. About an hour later, I realized my glasses were no longer on my head. I panicked. I'm blind as a bat two feet away from my face without them, and my old pair make me woozy. So I looked for them. Retraced my steps, tried to remember every fallen log and deer scat pile I walked past. Came inside, loaded my pics, so I could retrace my steps. Went back out. Stared at the ground for almost 3 more hours. Took lots more pictures, just for fun. Daughter helped when she got home, then husband. No luck.

Went back outside this morning for an hour, working a grid system, really, really looking, hard at the ground. Got cold. Came inside, whined to my sister online about having to spend 300 more dollars for new glasses. Went back outside with my camera, took some more Oooooh pictures of wet lichens and fungus in the rain. Rewalked the place where I got whacked in the face with a branch the day before, sure they had to be near. Sat on a log, stared, took more pictures. I walked out by the road, where my brambles end to take a picture of some lichens. Stared some more. And there they were.

Can you see them? I took this picture before I found them!

Took me a while too. Right edge middle of the photo, hanging about 8 inches over the ditch, caught on a grape vine. If the lenses weren't covered with raindrops, I might never have found them. I had looked up, I had looked down, but I had not considered the possibility they were hanging just above the ground. I took this picture after:

Needless to say, my eyeballs ache from 2 days in the old glasses and 6 hours of staring. On the bright side, I learned my lesson, I got a really, really close look at my woods, and I got some awesome pictures. I'll share them next post.

See it Before It's GONE

2011-03-08T07:38:00.008-06:00

Click here for a free, instant download of the flipbook, full of lush, haunting photos of the ruined, feral houses of the South. What I wouldn't give to see them in their glory.

Thanks to Bell Bridge Books and Librarything Early Reviewer program for sharing this book with everyone. I'm not sure how long the free download will last, but it's worth your time.

Enjoy.

p.s. How can you not think of sweetjuniper's feral home photos while looking at these?

Monday Macros

2011-03-07T08:35:00.010-06:00

Temps just above freezing, and abundant sunshine made my March morning marvelous.

Ice melt from the roof eaves on the burning bush.

The only flower blooming in my yard.

Lovely fungus.

Lovely lichens.

Interesting, tortured grape vine tendrils.

The Race to Nowhere

2011-03-04T09:22:00.011-06:00

This week I attended a screening of Race To Nowhere, a documentary film that analyzes the alarmingly ineffective and dangerous pressures our children face in school. The film, by Vicki Abeles, was born of a mother's concern over the stress induced insomnia and health problems her middle schoolers were experiencing from pressure to perform in school, the lack of family time caused by heavy homework loads, and sadly, the unfortunate suicide of a local 13 year old honor student after failing a math test. Abeles travelled the country interviewing students, educators and experts, exposing highly stressed students who are increasingly disengaged, depressed, ill, who self injure, become suicidal or hopeless; teachers disillusioned that they are not able to teach their material due to the pressures to teach standardized tests, and experts who are alarmed at the products this process is creating and its toll on our children. The film concludes that this treadmill of performance based standards is robbing children of both their childhood and a proper education, and encourages community involvement to help change the system.

The film was eye opening, and confirmed many of the gut feelings and biases I have about the education my children are receiving. A few highlights from the film, which I highly recommend:

Hours of homework increasingly cut into family time and cause stress for the whole family. There is no correlation between homework and performance, in fact the less homework a school assigns, the better the overall achievement of the students and school and the lower the stress levels for children and families. Most kids are skilled at hiding their stress, saying their day was OK, but the stress manifests itself in many unhealthy ways.

Roughly 97% of all high school students have used some form of cheating to maintain their grades. Most admit to cramming and forgetting to pass tests. Many are sleep deprived due to overscheduling and heavy course loads. But to what end? Elite colleges who accept the top AP students have to remediate almost half of the incoming freshmen because they are deficient in basic math and english skills. Go ahead, read that line again. Half of our top students are unprepared for freshman math and english classes. They also lack critical thinking, problem solving and social skills. They want to be told what to study for a test. The have been reared on busy work and standardized test prep and are not ready to really think and reason. Their education is a mile wide and an inch deep. Their education is biased toward college applications, not College.

Industrialized nations like Singapore or Finland who consistently outperform us on tests do not teach the tests or mandate testing, and they recruit their best students to become teachers, offering them scholarships and stipends, and reward them with high salaries and in many cases, strong unions. In the United States, teachers are penalized by the system, required to take an additional year of studies to become certified, losing a year of income while incurring further college debt, and then rewarded with low salaries and pressure to achieve test scores, not educated children.

I came home from the movie and had a long, meaningful discussion with my son, who is disillusioned and disengaged from school, and for whom I have become the prison warden and chief nag about all things related to school and grades and performance and schedules and his college options and his career path and his future and his entire life, and I apologized to him. We talked a lot about what his education has become and how we might try to make learning more fun and less oppressive for him. We decided that since the world is run by C students, he can relax, and know that if he finds his passion, everything will work out. I told him that Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and the CEO of McDonalds did not graduate college, some never even went. I decided to stop nagging him about his future and let him try and enjoy a piece of the childhood he has remaining. I'm going to be more perceptive about the pressures I put on my kids, and help them recognize and deal with their own stress before it becomes a bigger problem.

I caught Jon Stewart's interview last night with the author of The Death and Life Of the American Schools, who raises many of the same concerns as the film. After checking out her book, I'm convinced that No Child Left Behind (which began as an effort by the Children's Defense Fund to reduce poverty in American children before the Bush Administration turned it into an 1100 page unfunded mandate to the states) is the worst mistake ever made in the history of Education. The greatest irony of the program is that it takes the schools most in need of resources, our poorest, and punishes them by making them poorer. Poverty is the enemy of education and the cost to society is far greater at the outcome than the cost of investing in nutrition and education.

And now for some really biased opinions. First, I am a mom, and I pay attention to my kids' educations. I am very hands on, because I care A Lot, and I have the luxury of time to volunteer in their classrooms, or be available after school to help with assignments. Second, I see the world through the lens of my education and experience: a degree in Geography, because I like seeing the big picture and the whole organism, my career in analytical laboratories where I learned a thing or two about accuracy and precision and deductive reasoning, my MBA and Quality Management training, where I learned how important process is to outcome, and how measurement truly affects results. And third, after I left my glamorous career to be a stay at home mom and channeled all that energy and brain power into over-volunteering as a reading tutor, I was offered a part time position as an aid in the classrooms. I became a district employee, and one year on the inside of a stellar school district was enough to disillusion me for good. I worked with some wonderful teachers, but very few were able to maintain a sense of order or quiet in their classrooms, which I considered to be problem number one. Problem number two was the inane curriculum, which was modeled on a spiralling program of constantly repeating the material year after year, allowing for breadth of learning, but not depth, and text books that resembled Reader's Digest rather than reference books. Problem number three and worst of all, was the pressure to perform on standardized tests. Thanks to Bush's NCLB mandate, the test was life. The test determined not only our school's ranking and bragging rights, but ensured our share of federal funds. No performance, no money. Oh, and I suppose it determined Is our children learning? as the President so eloquently asked. Yes, our children was learning, alright - they were learning how to pass the state tests. The bulk of my paid time working as an aid to 3rd grade students was spent pulling the low performers (who were tracked in one class with stars on a wall chart) out of instructional class time to sit alone with me and review trouble areas on sample test questions, and try to help them figure out how to guess the correct answer. I spent hours copying sample tests for the classes to take repeatedly as the state test date loomed. On test week, every household still receives a robocall reminding the parents of the importance of sleep, nutrition and hydration to test performance. Posters and signs get hung reminding everyone of the test dates and reminding those in the hallways to keep quiet to avoid distracting test takers. Shhhhh. Tests in Progress. It is a Really Big Deal.

(Inane pet peeve about my job: I freaked out a teacher who had me grade quizzes, because I used a red pen and marked incorrect answers with an X. Oh No. Red has negative connotations, as does the X. Oh no, we mark incorrect answers with a non threatening color and a friendly check mark. Yep. Check = wrong. My counterintuitive BS meter was pegged all year!)

So. My middle schooler spends 4 half days a year just taking the ISAT tests, and who knows how much time prepping for them now. At the high school level test prep is now part of the curriculum and counts toward a percentage of the course grade in math and english classes.

To what end? My kids are pretty good test takers, scoring in the upper percentiles. They should, since mom and dad are both pretty smart geeks, but mostly because it is what they have been trained and drilled to do since elementary school. But here's the thing. They are poor thinkers. They miss key concepts. They want a quick and easy answer. The school system has dumbed down so much of the information and process that I am constantly appalled. For example, my 11th grader's history paper assignment came with a 4 page overview of the essay topic and grading rubric. This was accompanied by a 8 page fill in the blanks outline driving both the content and the format of the paper. I recall being assigned a topic and simply writing a paper in high school. I wasn't forced to dissect my thesis and argument into pieces and fit them into a confusing puzzle.

And while I'm bitching, my high school Chemistry text was not full of pictures and insets and outlines, or inane examples like this one. Seriously? Do 17 year old students need a quarter of a page devoted to a picture of a boy swimming to illustrate the concept of a parallel line????? Are you kidding me? I know, lets take some more tests.

It's not just this book. I look through all my children's text books, and they are full of pictures and they are so compartmentalized that research is tedious and ineffective. We use my books and the internet to fill in the gaps. My son's US History text, which is heavy and huge with pictures and ADD inducing content, includes a lengthy addendum of historical documents such as the Magna Carta and Articles of Confederation, but does not have a copy of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Again, are you kidding me?

There is no doubt in my mind that this system is badly broken. Into pieces. Bush's dream of becoming the Education President is our children's nightmare. Obama has some unkept promises to fulfill where this complex issue is concerned. I believe the stakes are very, very high in this Race that needs to be to Somewhere.

March Madness, or Happy Almost New Year

2011-03-01T13:52:00.009-06:00

March First, and I can almost smell the March equinox* where Day and Night are essentially equal. Spring thaw has officially begun. I have Evidence.

Once again, I have a ridiculously tenacious head cold, thanks to my son, and right on schedule, daughter has it too. It's been a non-stop cacophony of coughs since December around here, and I'm ate up with it, so to speak. So what to do on a snotty, miserable March morning? Stomp around in the crunchy melting snow, listening to the remnants of the ice storm clink to the ground from the treetops in the wind, the ridiculous wind that ushers in these thawing temperatures. It was all good, except for the snot.

Like I've whined before, I haven't enjoyed 2011 so far, because if I wasn't sick, someone in the family was. So I'm planning on starting my new year on the equinox, when I expect everybody to be healthy. So. Happy Almost New Year from the thawing Midwest.

* The word equinox just popped into my head today, from a random brain cell trying to be heard, and I googled it, and Wikipedia filled my head with fun facts, not the least of which is the burning of the socks and storytelling day. It fascinates me how holidays begin, and get rearranged over time. Time is so arbitrary, except for the constant things, like equinox and solstice. Anyway. Here's an excerpt of the non science, historical stuff:

The March equinox marks the first day of various calendars including the Iranian calendar and the Bahá'í calendar. According to the ancient Persian mythology Jamshid, the mythological king of Persia, ascended to the throne on this day and each year this is commemorated with festivities for two weeks. These festivities recall the story of creation and the ancient cosmology of Iranian and Persian people. It is also a holiday for Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, India, Turkey, Zanzibar, Albania, and various countries of Central Asia, as well as among the Kurds. As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday, it is also a holy day for adherents of the Bahá'í Faith and the Nizari Ismaili Muslims. Sham El Nessim was an ancient Egyptian holiday which can be traced back as far as 2700 B.C. It is still one of the public holidays in Egypt. Sometime during Egypt's Christian period (c. 200-639) the date moved to Easter Monday, but before then it coincided with the vernal equinox.

In many Arab countries, Mother's Day is celebrated on the March equinox.

The Jewish Passover usually falls on the first full moon after the Northern Hemisphere vernal equinox, although occasionally (7 times every 19 years) it will occur on the second full moon.

The Christian churches calculate Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox. The official church definition for the equinox is March 21; however, as the Eastern Orthodox Churches use the older Julian calendar, while the Western Churches use the Gregorian calendar, both of which designate March 21 as the equinox, the actual date of Easter differs. The earliest possible Easter date in any year is therefore March 22 on each calendar. The latest possible Easter date in any year is April 25.

Tamil and Bengali New Years follow the Hindu zodiac and are celebrated according to the sidereal vernal equinox (April 14). The former is celebrated in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and the latter in Bangladesh and the East Indian state of West Bengal.
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharastra people celebrate new year ugadi set by Satavahana on the first morning after first new moon from March equinox. Also the calculations of the great Indian Mathematician Bhaskaracharya proclaim the Ugadi day as the beginning of the New Year, New month and New day.

In the Indian states of Kerala and Orissa, the celestial vernal equinox is celebrated as the new year around April 14. It is known as 'Vishu' and 'Vishuva Sankranti' (meaning "equal" in Sanskrit).

Modern culture :

World Storytelling Day is a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling, celebrated every year on the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the first day of autumn equinox in the southern.

World Citizen Day occurs on the March equinox.

In Annapolis, Maryland in the United States, boatyard employees and sailboat owners celebrate the spring equinox with the Burning Of The Socks festival. Traditionally, the boating community wears socks only during the winter. These are burned at the approach of warmer weather, which brings more customers and work to the area. Officially, nobody then wears socks until the next equinox.

Earth Day was initially celebrated on March 21, 1970, the equinox day. It is currently celebrated in various countries on April 22.

Check out the Wiki page to learn more, since links are beyond me today.

There, that's enough learning for one day. Happy March.

Sunday Soapbox - For the Teachers

2011-02-20T15:51:00.006-06:00

The good ones anyway.

I got a link to Taylor Mali's slam poetry today, and have spent over an hour listening to his video clips. Fascinating, entertaining, inspiring stuff.

Definitely beautiful.

I made the teenagers listen to this one, I like, like it a lot, but they didn't, go figure?

Enjoy. And remember to be aggressively articulate.

Best Haircut Ever

2011-02-18T07:55:00.008-06:00

Not me, the dog. Ok, he wasn't this bad, but I imagine that's what Tucker would look like without grooming, only dirtier.
Before: a wet, smelly, matted, adorable doodle. He was bringing in gallons of mud and water on those paws, thanks to 2 feet of melted snow. Yuk.

After. Tucker's best haircut yet, because he doesn't look like a silly rat with a Q-tip for a tail, and he's not shaved to the skin with a little razor burn to add to the humiliation. This time, thank you PetSmart groomers, he looks like he's been groomed, not shaved. And he smells great too.

And he's still adorable, and uses those owl eyes to beg more effectively.

All in all, he is a happy dog.

Happy Friday, y'all. Maybe I should let PetSmart have a go at my hair....

Peace, Love and Barbecue

2011-02-14T11:35:00.008-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day.

Play this video and enjoy one of our favorite songs and performers, Marica Ball.

Some favorite found hearts:

My favorite person, working hard. I helped, and took some pictures because it was funny.

We shovelled from each end and met in the middle. It was peaceful out there, just me and him, and the furry third child, making a path to the grill. Dinner was amazing. We had Peace, Love and Barbeque.

Wishing you the same.

A Change of Scenery and Senses

2011-02-10T09:56:00.010-06:00

To balance the karma of my last maudlin post, and to thumb my big nose at the -13 degrees and who knows or cares what wind chill outside, I'm posting some happy places and things from my photo file. I feel better just looking through them, choosing what to share.

Thanks, Vicki Lane, for reminding me to visit where it's warmer in the deep chill of winter, and encouraging me to bake some bread.

Thanks, Sandra, for the soup inspiration and encouragement from the farther and colder north.

Thanks, Ms. Moon , for reminding me to pull myself together, and to put on my boots.

Thanks to all my blog friends who help keep me sane on the craziest, coldest days.

And now for the lovelies:

I can feel the sunlight on my face, smell the flowers and blossoms, feel the bark on the tree, hear the butterfly wings flutter, smell the salt and sand, hear the ocean, the kids laughing, feel the fireworks booming.... it is very good to remember. And to know there will be more yet to come, if I will just be patient.

And the chickens, well, they just make me smile. Hope you do too.

Going Nowhere

2011-02-07T11:01:00.009-06:00

Yesterday was one of those days. Melancholy in the air. Grey skies, more snow. Tired and achy and moody. Brittle. I found myself alone on a country road as a freight train passed by. The song on the radio and the view out my window perfectly captured how I felt at that moment. And I had my camera.

What made me sad was this. I am home. There is no home to come home to in the summer. So here I am. Waiting for summer to happen in this home, where I have transplanted myself. I guess some days I feel almost rootless, and easily blown over.

Ray Lamontagne is one of my favorite performers. His voice is haunting, and his songs are very real. Here's another clip, not so sad.

Some still pictures from my Superbowl Sunday drive:

Today, at least, there is sun, and I feel grateful to have a place to call home.
And Mel is hoping to be less melancholy and more mellifluous in the days ahead.

Getting There.....Sepia Saturday

2011-02-05T01:00:00.001-06:00

Inspired by this weeks Sepia Saturday Series.......

A little from my mom's side of the family, and quite a few cars.

My Maternal Grandfather, John Hickman in Crisfield, Maryland, with his first car, Lina.
My soon to be Grandmother, Frances Campbell and her friend. "Pals"
John, 1928, with unknown girls. Cousins or nieces perhaps. What the picture can't say is he had flaming red hair and lots of freckles.

The happy couple, Mr. and Mrs. John Hickman. They were married in 1933, and stayed that way for almost 40 years until 1972.
John, fishing on the Chesapeake Bay. By trade, he was a farmer, a blacksmith, a carpenter, a cabinetmaker, an electrician, a mechanic and a master story teller. There was nothing he could not do. He worked most of his life as the caretaker and manager of a 200 acres historic farm, Beverly of Somerset, in Princess Anne Maryland.
Frances, his wife, a nurse, a farmer's wife, seamstress, lacemaker, artist. There was nothing she could not do.

Their daughter, my mother Harriett, working on the farm in the 1940's. There was nothing she could not do. And yes, she's actually driving the tractor in this picture.
Alternate means of transportation for Harriett. This was a working horse.
Harriett with her date, thankfully things did not work out. Frances sewed the outfit. John built the house himself, to retire in. but he didn't get more than a few years there. (I remember that we were allowed to ring the dinner bell when we visited as kids. )
She instead chose a man who looked to be trouble, my dad Peter, but he turned out to be anything but. He enlisted, got shipped overseas as the war was ending, and my mom followed him to Germany. Her parents sat for their first and only portrait to send to them.

My parents married in July 1955 in Mannheim-Sandhofen Germany, living there for another year before Dad's tour ended. They were married almost 53 years. They had this painting commissioned by an artist who worked from the newspaper clipping. He did a pretty good job. So did they.

Scenes from a Blizzard

2011-02-03T16:35:00.008-06:00

The sunrise the day before the storm. Clouds quickly overtook the sun.

Tuesday, school closed early, and stayed closed for two more days, which is unusual for us. The winds and blowing snow made the roads impassable. Fortunately, we were safe and sound at home. Power was never lost, and we stayed warm as the fierce winds rattled and howled. The only inconvenience besides a dog that needed company to go pee was a loss of internet and phone service. I made soup, we played games, watched documentaries and read and all was cozy. Others were not so lucky, stuck on roads that were unpassable, waiting rescue. Today the roads are clear, the winds less intense, it's just damn cold. Frigid. But the sun is shining and the snow piles are impressive.

The back door, drifted almost 4 feet around the barbeque grill.
The wind was whipping across the yard, rattling the house.
The next day, after the storm, all sunny and sparkly and very cold.

But not too cold for the young at heart and a very furry dog. It took 5 towels and a blowdryer to thaw him out. He was crusted in about 10 pounds of snowballs. Good times!

Some scenes from the roads near my house today. I ventured out for my annual mammogram. I figured why not?

And this is what it looked like from space. Awesome. Thanks, NASA.

Stay warm and cozy, wherever you are. Spring can't be too far off.

Fish Tales...Sepia Saturday

2011-01-29T23:42:00.009-06:00

Fishing has been a part of my family's life for generations. If a man had a boat and a fishing pole, his family would not go hungry. But fishing was much more than a means to put food on the table - it was almost a religion, a quest, an addiction. A man could test himself against the water and the fish. If he were feeling brave or adventurous, he could test himself against the Atlantic Ocean, out beyond the bay. No matter that the boat was small or the swells huge, because the big fish were out there, waiting to be caught.

This is my father, Peter, with his pride and joy, his first boat.
This is my grandfather Pete, doing what he loved best - fishing on the bay.
Peter and Pete showing the catch of the day to Susan.
A good day on the water, and a good day's work. A beauty, almost more than a man can lift. Two brothers and a son - three men and a boat, a spark plug for bait, and a 40 pound rock fish to show for the day.

My cousin Lee, who grew up to be a boat captain, a harbormaster and a master fisherwoman. Like this photo of her, my earliest happy memories involve water and catching a big fish.

My dad taught me to dig for worms, bait a hook, be patient for a bite, reel them in slow, clean them and cook them and enjoy eating them. I caught my first fish when I was five. I remember. It was something. Yes, I remember - hot sunny days at the quarry, long days rocking on a boat, quiet days on the lake, fishing pole in hand, bait on the hook, waiting for a bite on the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and the waters of the Delmarva Peninsula.

The fish are much smaller now, as the waters are overfished and the pickings are slim. But we have our photos and our fish tales to tell. We remember, and that is worth something.

Post inspired by the Sepia Saturday series.

Warm Fuzzies and Small Miracles

2011-01-27T07:47:00.011-06:00

First, the fuzzies.

Baby Pandas. Doesn't get much cuter than that. If you want to feel all gooey inside, go to Zooborns for more cute babies.

So, on the home front, winter continues to hold us in her grip. But. There are small, subtle changes to appreciate, like noticing that it's no longer pitch dark at 5pm and being grateful for the daylight.

The soundtrack to our lives is no longer the dry hacking barking cough we've listened to for three straight unrelenting mind numbing nerve wracking weeks. The sound of the quiet and the joy at returning to something resembling normal is almost impossible to describe. It is nothing less than a small miracle.

We were scheduled to see a speech pathologist Tuesday morning because the ENT said it was our best hope to stop the cough. We waited four long days for the appointment, and when they called the day of to reschedule due to illness, I did what any responsible, strung out mother would do. I cried. I whined. I said you are our only hope, when can we come? A few phone calls later, we were in that day at 5pm. An angel named Cathy stayed late to see us, and I'm not lying when I say I love her. She jumped right in. Showed us a model of the throat and all it's mysterious parts, explained the damage the cough was doing to the cartilage, said it had to stop right now. She said simply, the more you cough, the more you cough. Get it? Your brain is stuck, and you have to make it stop making you cough.

She took Em through three different options, including tiny coughs or throat clearings, breathing exercises to relax the throat, and counting to see how far she could get without a cough. She made Em talk and sing and breathe and relax and sip water and get up and walk and breathe and count and ahem and breathe and before the hour was up, the cough went from continual to 30 seconds apart to a minute to three to a small quiet noise and it was nothing short of a minor miracle to the exhausted parents who watched it happen. (Who had found all these techniques online and had tried them, but not as forcefully, convincingly or assuredly as Cathy, who said the most important ingredient was wanting more than anything for the cough to stop. There's something to be said for professional competence and authority, and the inability of a child to listen to a parent!)

The elation of this breakthrough was marred by the emotional breakdown that ensued when daughter was told she needed to go back to school at once, back to everything, back to her life, and be forced to control the cough, because the less she coughed, the less she would cough. She was petrified to be so far behind in her classes, afraid she'd be embarrassed, afraid her friends wouldn't miss her. I'm estimating it took 5 hours of crying to actually make it through the doors to the school the next day, but she did it. And she was fine. She came home happy and almost back to normal. And she is coughing less and less and less, and the silence is music to my ears.

This parenting gig has never been what I imagined. It is more complicated, mysterious and confounding than anything I have ever done in my life. The teen years are even more complicated and precarious as I remember the train wreck that mine were and try not to let the past repeat itself. All I can do is try, and try some more. And be grateful for what is, and what isn't.

Thanks for sharing this stretch of the journey with me, for offering up kind comments, suggestions, words of encouragement and understanding. I am grateful, thankful and humbled over and over again. Full of warm fuzzies inside, even as the snow falls outside.

XXOO

What's New & Mysterious

2011-01-22T08:42:00.009-06:00

Well, it's been quite a week. Thanks for all the concern and kind thoughts for my daughter. She is still coughing, still miserable, but otherwise healthy, except for bloating and mood swings from steroids. We are at a very mysterious and perplexing place with the diagnosis. After scoping her throat, the ENT doc determined the cough to be neurogenic, also known as laryngeal spasm and vocal cord dysfunction. Google mania also determined this to be post viral laryngeal neuropathy. In short, she is stuck. Doc said he's seeing more of this, particularly in young patients. More google-fu reveals it is most often seen in young, athletic, intelligent, previously asthmatic or allergic reaction, near onset of menses females. Bingo.

That's the good news. They know what it is. The not so good news is the treatment is anti-depressents usually given for neuropathy, and I'm not going there yet, or speech therapy for breathing control. We see the speech therapist on Tuesday, and by then, she will have coughed nonstop for 20 days. Usually, it is an intermittent thing, like recurring hiccups, but she has always been an overachiever.

She just woke up and I hear her coughing and I promised homemade, healthy waffles. Just wanted to share what I know and say thanks again, for the hints, the help and the kindness. Especially to Michelle, for offering her love and expertise and helping to guide me through this maze, and keep the panic at bay. Yes, the universe is abundant. And mysterious.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks, the world outside my door. My little camera is refusing to focus lately, and the batteries won't hold a charge, so like my brain, the images are a little fuzzy. But they tell a story anyway.

Stay warm and well out there.

What it looks like at my house

2011-01-18T09:05:00.004-06:00

Outside, 5 new inches of snow, made crusty by freezing rain.

Inside, we are ready for this morning's breathing program and meds.

Nebulizers, inhalers, vaporizers, antibiotics, steroids and cough medicines, oh my. The stuff in the baggie on the right is the never mind/didn't work stuff, which combined cost slightly more than the orange inhaler, which costs - after insurance - $230 per tube, which is the winner in the You Have Got to Be Kidding Me category. A close second is antibiotic 2 of 3, which rang in at $170 dollars because there is no generic. All told, you're looking at just under $1000 in prescription medicines from the last 12 days, who knows what the doctors bills will be. But get this - we have Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, which we pay for, because we are self employed and self insured small business owners who are supposed to save the depressed economy. Hah. I would like to pass a job killing bill to fire some ignorant politicians if I were able.

But here's the thing. The money part is irrelevant in the big picture. She is not better. At all. No change, two weeks later. Today we go to the hospital lab to get swabbed for whooping cough because it's going around. Even immunized kids are getting it. But I'm thinking this is not whooping cough. It doesn't fit. But nothing else fits either and what do I know besides what I read online. Three doctors and a pulmonary specialist have no other ideas to stop the non-stop coughing - and by non-stop I mean every thirty seconds or less, all day and whenever she stirs at night. Poor thing is sore and hoarse and cranky. I'm helpless and clueless. I just try to keep little girl from going crazy from both the coughing and the boredom and hope time heals whatever the hell this is.

That's the news from here. Nothing good except that things could be worse and thank goodness they aren't. I read online about people breaking ribs from coughing, coughing like this for months, a hundred days. My girl, who is not so little any more has had episodes like this for the past 5 years, as her lungs take great offense to viral invaders, but she's always gotten better within days of treatment. Now we are into weeks and likely immuno -suppressed from the steroids and I am living in high alert mode, scared she's missed so much school and equally terrified to throw her back into the germ pool. I want to bubble wrap her and keep her safe, once I get her well.

And so it goes this winter at my house. Stay well out there. And thanks for listening to me whine.

Again.

What it sounds like at my house

2011-01-12T19:50:00.004-06:00

Cough cough. Cough cough. Cough cough cough.

For 8 straight days and most of the nights.

My 100 pound, 13 year old daughter had a sore throat last week.

Two days later she started coughing. Non stop. Until she gags and retches.

We've had xrays, doctor visits, inhalers, steroids, two antibiotics, every cough syrup they make, with and without codeine, steam baths, controlled breathing, vaporizers, back rubs, you name it, nothing works. Nothing.

Eight days later she is still coughing non stop. A week of school missed, with midterms looming. No appetite, no energy, little rest, sore muscles, no voice.

It is the hardest thing I do as a mother, to try and stay calm, to reassure myself that there is nothing else that we can do but wait, and to be vigilant that she is getting enough oxygen and has no fever. But I am at DefCon 4, Orange Alert, and I have listened to her cough so long I can barely stand it.

Which makes me feel awful, because I can't imagine what she feels like.

Official diagnosis, pnuemonia, organism unspecified, acute bronchitis and cough.

We've been here many times before, but this is the worst bout yet. I'm trying to see through this and visualize her breathing easy, and sleeping. She keeps saying I'm sorry, Mommy, and that makes me feel awful too.

I give it two more days then I'm planning on freaking out. I'm hoping the new antibiotic can keep me from going there.

I don't know how moms with chronic, very ill children do it, I just don't. I never knew how weak and worthless and helpless I really was until I became a mom. I guess everyone just does what they have to, even if that means just leaving the room for a minute so you don't have to hear your child suffer, so you can come back in and offer what feeble comfort there is to give.

So far, I'm not liking this year at all. And I wasn't that fond of last year.

So that's what it sounds like at my house. Cough cough. Cough cough cough.

Cough, cough. Cough cough. Cough cough cough cough cough .... aaaargh.

Awful and then some

2011-01-09T13:19:00.008-06:00

About the shootings in Arizona:

Authorities said the dead included U.S. District Judge John M. Roll; Christina Taylor Greene; Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman, 30; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Scheck, 79. Judge Roll had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after attending Mass.

One of the victims, 9 year old Christina-Taylor Green, was a member of the student council at her local school and went to the event because of her interest in government. She is the grandaughter of former Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green.

She was born on 9/11 and featured in a book called "Faces of Hope" that chronicled one baby from each state born on the day terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people.

The fact that Christina's life ended in tragedy was especially tragic to those who knew her. "Tragedy seems to have happened again," said the author of the book, Christine Naman. "In the form of this awful event."

***

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik: "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous ... And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital.... We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry"

***

Giffords expressed similar concern about the political atmosphere, even before the shooting. In an interview after her office was vandalized, she referred to the animosity against her by conservatives, including Sarah Palin's decision to list Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in the midterm elections.

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.

***

SarahPAC staffer Rebecca Mansour, who has been tweeting in defense of her boss since the tragedy took place, is stating that the crosshairs were never intended to be gun sights.

"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," she said in an interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce Saturday. "It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps." Bruce suggested that they could, in fact, be seen as "surveyor's symbols." Mansour added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent" and called any attempts to politicize the Arizona tragedy "repulsive."

***

There is so much to say and think about these facts and quotes, but words fail me.

If I'm going fling some blame of my own, I would aim at the contentious, uncivil, hatefilled political landscape that reduces every personal ideology into left or right, us and them; the inflammatory media frenzy; the increasing ignorance of the average citizen; the erosion of social networks and services that might have better supported or detected a deranged and unstable individual; and a system that makes it so easy for a deranged and unstable individual to acquire a semiautomatic weapon.

As I drove past signs for the gun show at the county fair grounds today, to take my pneumonia riddled daughter to the emergency health clinic, I thought about the victims and their families, and I wondered which unstable nutjob was looking at guns there today.

Three years ago, a few miles down the road, 27 year old and presumably unstable Steven Kazmierczak brought a Remington 870 shotgun and three handguns - a 9mm Glock, a 9mm Sig Sauer, and a .380 Hi-Point into a NIU lecture hall and shot 18 students, 5 fatally, before taking his own life. Senseless and unfathomable. And very, very close to home.

And it just keeps happening. All over the world. Switzerland, France, Spain, Germany, Scotland, the United States of America. Countries with and without gun bans. Unstable, angry, disassociated, disconnected men and modern weapons just keep ripping lives and towns apart.

I don't have answers, just questions and concerns. But I'm guessing less governement intervention or control is not going to decrease the frequency with which these tragedies keep occurring.

No I don't have any answers, just more questions, and more sorrow.

Pure Magic

2010-12-29T20:28:00.008-06:00

I thought yesterday's frost was pretty cool. This morning showed me I had no clue. Breathtaking is the only word that comes close.

I snapped pics around the yard, then sure I was missing better magic, packed the yeti in the car and drove around my neighborhood and to the park. Looky what I saw. It only got better as the sky got bluer.

The snow had a light crunch to every step. There were deer and rabbit tracks and Mr. Tucker had the best morning ever. Me too. It was really hard to take it all in. As I drove home, I saw a few neighbors standing in their yards with cameras, so I wasn't the only one mesmerized.

I woke my Rip Van Winkle 16 year old son and made him look out the window. He sat for a while and asked why everything was so white. Mom/nerd/weather geek told him a warm mass of moist air collided with cooler trees and crystals formed gently on every surface. What I should have said was Magic, my son, pure Magic.

Around noon, when the sun had warmed enough, the crystals on the trees fell softly and silently to the ground, sparkling glints of sunlight on their way down. I watched, and soaked it in so I could remember for ever and always.

The light in my trees and states of matter

2010-12-28T09:45:00.000-06:00

What to do on day 7 of the cold from hell? Fuzzy brained, clogged sinuses, snot-festooned, raw throated, rattly chested, lymph enlarged, taste impaired, bone tired - this cold tests what I'm made of and how much more I can take before I run whining to the doctor for antibiotics I don't want to need.

What to do, indeed.

Well today, the sunlight sparkled in rime frost and I said what the heck. Boots on bare feet, coat over jammies, camera in hand, doggy at the door. It was good, except for the snot part, but I managed to enjoy it for the brilliant crisp morning it was, and laugh a bit at silly Mr. Tucker.

He likes teeny tiny toys. This one is a santa bouncy ball. He likes to pounce on it and bury it in the snow, then dig around like a pig after truffles until he finds it. Chew, chew, toss, pounce. Repeat. The snowballs in his foot pads are huge. Handfuls. It takes several towels to dry the snow melt off him, but a boy needs his play time.

I've lost count of the snowfall, 6 or so good ones, 8 or 9 inches, maybe?

Cold, though. I have a clock that beams the time and temperature on my ceiling, because I need to know these things. At 4 am it was 13 degrees F. At 9 am it was 19. I suppose it's 21 or 22 by now. Which can feel remarkably tolerable after a colder snap, if there is no wind. Especially if there is sun.

Enchanting rime frost, like fairy dust. I never catch the magic on film. Still, I try.

Then there's this. Christmas Eve errands with the family, gentle snow falling. Daughter says mom, look up. The moon roof was mesmerizing with water droplets from melted snow. Of course I had my camera.

Cool, huh? Random and yet not quite.

This is the patio one snowfall ago. Wish we had put away the chairs and covered the umbrella. But we're lazy like that. The hammock and volleyball net are up still too. Oh well.

This is the ice on my front step, from the roof melt. Can you see the shattered icicles? Daughter was tossing a volleyball up to break them before anyone got impaled. Got most of them before the ball got stuck. Not to worry. It'll come down in the thaw and it really adds to the decor, yes?

Major design flaw with this house. I amuse myself this winter looking at portico designs and fantasizing about a small, tasteful addition to provide shade and shelter for Tucker as he guards the home. And protect visitors from impalings or soaking rains. Maybe someday.

This poor red tail has been hunting my back yard for a few weeks now. I quit filling the feeders after I watched him make a kill under them. Didn't want to set traps for the little birdies. Besides, my neighbors keep theirs filled so the little ones won't go hungry. Wish someone would make a raptor feeder. I'd gladly hang some meat out for them. Tough life for these grand birds, forced to hunt in backyards for food.

Lastly, despite the cold, the 4 boxes of kleenex, the sleepless, congested nights, it's been an otherwise lovely holiday with my little family. We've read books around the fire, played games, eaten, drank and been merry.

I leave you with my Christmas Craft, the wine cork wreath. Easy to make if you have a drill and lots of corks laying around, check and double check. I made some tree ornaments out of champagne corks, but gave them away. Cute, though, with bells and bows.

Wishing you good books, warm fires, warm hearts, happy dogs or cats or kids, good times and sunshine, eventually. Hope you find something magical or wonderful or funny in the world around you. I believe all you have to do is look sometimes, and maybe do the unexpected once in a while.

For Ms. Moon, a sweet Nebulullaby

2010-12-22T15:19:00.006-06:00

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sean Lennon collaborated with 389 other people online at hitrecord.org to make this lovely nebulullaby.